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In Forest Land 



BY 
DOUGLAS MALLOCH 



ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY 
SIDNEY VERNON STREATOR 



Z906 

AMERICAN LUMBERMAN 
CHICAGO 



-, ir- iii nnr . Ta at6 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 

Two Copies Received 

NOV 14 1906 

o Copyright Entry , 
CLASS A XXc, NO, 
CO 



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COPYRIGHT. 1906. BY 

THE AMERICAN LUMBERMAN 

CHICAGO 



INDEX 



Accessory, The 46 

Autumn ... 29 

Back to the Land 139 

Barbary Coast, The Ill 

Basket Weaver, The 17 

Big Tree, The . . . • 153 

Bill 132 

Birth of Hope, The 24 

Birthplace, The 179 

Blind, The 188 

Brotherhood of the Forest, The 43 

Bud Green's Hero 163 

Burning, The 165 

Callin' of the Pine, The 77 

Channel, The 148 

Confusion of Tongues, The .... ... 79 

Connecticut Drive, The 105 

Constancy 19 

Departure, The 144 

Deserted Camp, The 68 

Detroit 182 

Disagreeableness of Infallibility, The . ... 192 

Disappointment 22 

Diversity of Nature, The . . 21 

Drive, The 104 

Druids of the Olden Time, The ...... 40 

Edelweiss ...... 37 

Encouragement . 187 

Fair One, The ... 55 

Fall of the Champion, The 120 

Family Trees 30 

Filipinos, The 170 

3 



4 INDEX 

Forest Fire, The 12 

Forest, Give Me of Thy Green 49 

Forest Morn, The 32 

Forest on the Shore, The ... .... 50 

Gallant Oak, The 53 

Garb of Glory, The .... 54 

Give a Boy a Dawg , . , . 157 

Give Me an Ax 117 

Gliders, The 113 

Good Night, Mother 184 

Here Will Be the End of My Voyage 39 

Immortality 57 

In an Open Place 8 

Inland Tar, The 135 

It's a Mighty Good World to Me 190 

Jean Comes to Mass 97 

Jefferson 172 

Land of Christmas Trees, The 155 

Last Night the Silent Plaza Through ... .173 

Lew Wallace 183 

Louisiana Monument, The ....... 169 

Louisiana Purchase, The 168 

Love of a Botanist, The 41 

Lover and the Hunter, The 48 

Lumber Camp Cat, The 47 

Lumberjack, The 59 

McDonald, the Cook 75 

Magic of the Moon, The 42 

Man Behind the Scrap, The 93 

Mary's Mission Furniture 72 

Meeting of the Waters, The 106 

Melody of Leaves Astir, The 7 

Men of Bangor, The 142 

Mill in the Forest, The 119 

Napoleon 172 



INDEX 5 

Narrative, A 149 

Night 177 

Oak of MacGregor, The 38 

Old Accordion, The 66 

Old Ohio Levee, The 102 

Old Pole Bridge, The 20 

One 33 

On the Bluffs of the Little Big Horn 175 

Oshkosh • 125 

Palm, The 15 

Platte, The 110 

Poet and Peasant 95 

Poet and Plutocrat 34 

Porte des Mortes 147 

Pyramid Park 181 

Rebellious River, The 108 

Revenge of the Good Scow Mary, The 145 

Ridin' on the Carriage 161 

Rugged Sons of Maine, The 10 

Runnin* Lawgs 158 

Saginaw, The 129 

San Francisco 166 

Shadow and Sun 52 

Silent City, The 126 

Sleep 25 

Song for the Satiated, A 36 

Songs the Woodsmen Sing, The 83 

Son of SicUy, A 88 

Sportsman, The . 51 

Spring 44 

Stable Boy, The 90 

Sunday Afternoon . . . , 63 

Sympathy 185 

Thanksgiving 178 

Thanksgiving Turk, The 115 



6 INDEX 

Tommie's House 160 

Turkey Taste, The . 130 

Unconscious Philosopher, The 70 

Up in the Woods 65 

Upward Trail, The ... 27 

Vision in the Wood, The 18 

Way Home, The 85 

Welcome to the New Year 26 

When Patti Sang at 38 60 

When the Drive Comes Down . . ... . . 101 

Who Understands 58 

Will of the Mighty, The 99 

Woman Cook, The 137 

Your Son and Mine 14 



THE FOREST 



THE MELODY OF LEAVES ASTIR. 

Let other bards their harps attune 

To sing of gold and courts and kings ; 
But leave to me the hush of June, 

The music that the forest sings. 
Let other bards from fields of blood 

Send up their hymns to mighty Mars ; 
But leave to me the quiet wood, 

The tender moonlight and the stars. 

I'll hang my harp upon a tree. 

Where ev'ry passing breeze may play, 
And catch the leafy minstrelsy, 

The music of the shaded way. 
Yea, I will teach this harp of mine 

To sing the song the forest sings, 
To mingle with the sob of pine 

The silver aspen's whisperings. 

For I would find that sweetest chord 

That makes the forest harmony. 
Would wake at will the music poured 

To ev'ry zephyr by the tree. 
To know thee more my spirit longs, 

O melody of leaves astir ; 
O forest, let me sing thy songs, 

O, make me thy interpreter. 



IN FOREST LAND 



IN AN OPEN PLACE. 

I step from out the forest vast 

My feet have wandered through; 
I leave the forest of the Past 

To greet a forest new. 
A year ago like this I stood 

Before untrodden ways 
And plunged, as now, within a wood — 

A wilderness of days. 

A year ago a year new born 

Stretched out before my feet; 
Then not a rose concealed a thorn 

And ev'ry fruit was sweet. 
But, as I walked, the sky grew gray 

And tangled grew the road ; 
Then lonely was the forest way 

And heavy was the load. 

As thus the year, once new, grew less, 

Perplexing grew the wood; 
I knew not if to onward press 

Or linger where I stood. 
New hurts and wrongs my path made drear, 

Old wounds were opened wide; 
And none there was my heart to cheer 

And none to walk beside. 

Now comes the New Year, as it came 

Before with hope aglow; 
The way that beckons is the same 

That called a year ago. 



THE FOREST 

1 thank Thee, Lord, that, spite of pain 

And slur and cold offense, 
I thank Thee, Lord, that, spite of rain 

And past experience. 

The New Year ever looks as fair 

As if all life were new; 
The world behind is bleak and bare — 

The sky before is blue, 
I thank Thee, Lord, the New Year brings 

A balm for hurt and pain; 
With feet that run and heart that sings 

I journey on again. 



10 IN FOREST LAND 



THE RUGGED SONS OF MAINE. 

Beneath the spruce tree and the pine 

Were Httle children reared 
And something of that regal line 

In their own blood appeared. 
For they were mighty, like the tree 

In form and heart and brain 
And grew in stately dignity — 

The rugged sons of Maine. 

Their cradle was the bough that swings, 

Their lullaby the breeze 
That strikes the forest's waiting strings 

And wakes its harmonies. 
They laved their feet in purling brooks 

That tumble to the plain, 
And learned from Nature more than books- 

The rugged sons of Maine. 

No terrors in the forest dwelt 

Or through the forest crept — 
It was the altar where they knelt, 

The chamber where they slept. 
They walked its solemn aisles secure 

From want or care or pain, 
In health and vigor rich, though poor — 

The rugged sons of Maine. 

The rugged sons of Maine have stamped 

Their impress on the world, 
Beneath the battleflag have tramped 

Where death's tornado whirled. 



THE FOREST 11 



The peacetime's greater victories 
Have felt the hand and brain 

Of children of the forest trees — 
The rugged sons of Maine. 

And some there were who left the wild 

To other hills to roam, 
But never does the forest child 

Forget the forest home. 
Remembering its tender love 

In sunshine and in rain, 
They proudly wear the title of 

The rugged sons of Maine. 



12 IN FOREST LAND 



THE FOREST FIRE. 

At first a spark that slumbered in the leaves; 
And then a tiny blaze that glowed afar— 
A distant blaze that seemed a fallen star, 

A single grain from heaven's silver sheaves. 

The morn a smoke-plume on the hill revealed, 
That marked the first insidious advance. 
The night came down, and found the fiery lance 

Sunk deeper in the mountain's verdant shield. 

Then came long days that melted into night 
And left the sky in lurid color dressed ; 
The sun set slowly in the vapored west, 

A copper oval of distorted light. 

The primal blaze threw its increasing line 
Across the mountain's wooded side until 
Re-echoed mournfully from hill to hill 

The thunder of the stricken giant pine. 

Oft skyward blazed a solitary tree, 

A vivid instant dimmed all other fire — 
Like souls of mighty men, when they expire 

Prove greatest, even in adversity. 

And, when the fury of the fiend was spent. 
Burned out the fullness of its torrid wrath. 
It left behind a devastated path — 

To human carelessness a monument. 

O ye who love the richly verdured hill. 

Who wander through the tangled woodland ways ; 



THE FOREST 13 

O ye who know the worth of summer days 
And love the music of the mountain rill; 

Ye who convert the tree to purpose new, 

To final, destined and most proper use, 

Play ye no part, I pray, in this abuse, 
Have not the burden of the blame on you. 

First learn, yourselves, the best considered plan, 
Then teach the careless what their duties are. 
And never more the running flame shall scar 

These timbered hills, God's generous gift to man. 



14 IN FOREST LAND 



YOUR SON AND MINE. 

They fell, together, at the rifle pit — 

My boy in garb of blue, your son in gray; 
And heaven wept its tears at close of day 
At sight of it. 

They sleep together in a common grave, 

Lulled by the murmur of the Georgia pine. 
Brave was that son of yours in gray ; and mine — 
Was he less brave? 

If they who fought the fight of life for life 

And grappled at the frail embankment's crest 
Have found together in your South sweet rest 
Where once was strife ; 

If they, who lived as foes, as brothers died, 

Then we the gentle balm of peace may know — 
Our friendship by our common loss and woe 
Resanctified. 

They sleep together 'neath your Georgia pine, 

The neither one more true nor yet more brave. 
Come, clasp our hands across this common grave 
Your son and mine. 



THE FOREST 15 

THE PALM. 

The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree. — Psalm XCI:i2. 

From the sands of the desert unnumbered, 

Afar from the Uly-crowned Nile, 
Where the world through the ages has slumbered 

The sleep without vision or smile, 
It rises in evergreen splendor, 

Majestic and mighty and calm — ■ 
And the heart of the pilgrim grows tender 

And sweet with the peace of the palm. 

The earth is a desert of yellow, 

The sky is a desert of brass. 
But the fruit of the palm tree is mellow 

And its throne is a carpet of grass. 
On the silence of earth, gray and solemn, 

It breaks like the tones of a psalm : 
It lifts to the heavens a column. 

The evergreen shaft of the palm. 

And thus, in the desert of living 

Where the feet of the pilgrims have trod. 
His heart of its mellow fruit giving, 

Arises the servant of God — 
A comfort to those who would falter ; 

To those who are weary, a balm ; 
By the desolate roadside, an altar ; 

In the desert of living, a palm. 

O be ye the palm tree, my brother, 
An oasis thus on the way ; 



16 IN FOREST LAND 

O give of your faith to another, 
A beacon to him who would stray. 

And the sands shall be cool that are burning, 
And the heart that is torn shall be calm. 

And the feet that would fail shall be turning 
To rest in the peace of the palm. 



THE FOREST 17 

THE BASKET WEAVER. 

No flashing loom is hers ; no shuttle flies 
To do the bidding of her hands and eyes. 
No needle glides to designated place, 
As weave her sisters overseas the lace. 
Hers is a simpler workshop in the leaves; 
This is a simpler pattern that she weaves, 
Her woof the splinter of the forest tree, 
The a.sh so white, the elm and hickory, 
Her dyes the blood of marish weeds and bark 
With tints as ruddy as her features dark — 
These are her simple implements of toil, 
The ready products of the woodland soil. 

Yet who shall say her skill is aught the less 
Than that of her who weaves the princess' dress? 
For generations women of her race 
Have woven baskets in this quiet place. 
And she who weaves beneath the ancient trees 
Reveals the skill of toilsome centuries. 

Into the basket weaves she more than wood — 
For weaves she in the romance of her blood. 
Yea, weaves she in the moonlight and the sun, 
The westward's burning rays when day is done, 
The verdant tints of winter's evergreen, 
The lily's whiteness and the willow's sheen, 
The regal purple of her honored chief, 
The simple beauty of her God-belief. 

So, through its time, the basket that she makes 
Shall sing to me of brooks and sylvan lakes. 
Shall sing the glory of the vanished Red, 
Shall sing a requiem for peoples dead. 
Shall sing of tree, of flower and of sod — 
Shall sing of Nature and the place of God. 



18 IN FOREST LAND 

THE VISION IN THE WOOD. 

I heard a voice that sang within the wood, 
A voice so sweet and so divinely clear 
That, while it sang its song, I seemed to hear 

The answering song of angels where I stood. 

The song I know not — some unwritten rune 
Of summer nights, of warm, enchanted hours. 
The notes of birds, the whisperings of flowers, 

Commingled in a melody of June, 

I saw a figure flitting through the wood — 
A woman's tempting form idealized, 
A woman's form that shrank from me, surprised, 

A form as graceful as the face was good. 

I caught a glimpse of smiling eyes and mouth 
And to the phantom all my soul went forth; 
My heart, till now a frozen, barren north, 

Became a quickened and a torrid south, 

I came upon the vision in the wood 

And (such are men and such are women fair) 
Rejoiced to find no angel waited there 

But just a woman, half-reluctant, stood. 

The voice seraphic was a human voice. 
The vision's most divinely molded form 
With human blush was animate and warm, 

And, o'er and o'er, I heard my heart rejoice. 

l'envoi 

Let poets with the angels dim commune, 
But give to me no vision from above ; 
Give but a woman lush with life and love, 

A forest path, her voice, her touch — and June. 



THE FOREST 19 



CONSTANCY. 

Tall and trim 
The pine tree grows, 

Every limb 
With verdure glows; 

Winter keen 
Or autumn sere 

Finds it green 
Through all the year. 

Life hath snow 
Like winter hath ; 

Cold winds blow 
Across my path. 

Wind and drift 
Go swirling by; 

Let me lift 
My head on high. 

Boreas, roll 
Thy thunder car — 

Still my soul 
Shall seek the star. 

Winds may sweep 
Life's woodland through- 

I will keep 
My spirit true. 



20 IN FOREST LAND 

THE OLD POLE BRIDGE. 

The old pole bridge was the road that led 

To the meadow-lands beyond ; 
In the evening light 'twas the way I sped 

To a girl who was fair and fond. 
The old pole bridge led to fields of green ; 

Yea, it led to peaceful farms, 
The calm of the wood and the rural scene — 

And it led to a woman's arms. 

O'er the quiet stream its far-flung length 

Was hung like a mighty thread, 
And great its bulk and sure its strength — 

But it trembled at my tread. 
As the old pole bridge, my heart was strong 

With the youth's sufficiency; 
But a woman sang but a woman's song 

And I shook like the aspen tree. 

Here were the marsh and the tangled grass 

And there was the meadow fair; 
Here was nothing and there a lass — 

And heaven was over there. 
At the end of the bridge my heaven lay, 

At the end of the wooden span ; 
For such is the charm of a woman's way 

And such is the heart of a man. 

The quiet stream still softly sings, 

The meadow-grass is sweet; 
The old pole bridge stUl gently swings. 

Awaiting a lover's feet. 
They are far away, they are far beyond 

The plain and the mountain ridge ; 
But I know that a girl who is fair and fond 

Still waits at the old pole bridge. 





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The calm of the wood." 



THE FOREST 21 

THE DIVERSITY OF NATURE. 

We marvel at the beauty of the earth 

But none the less at its diversity ; 
In all the forests that the years give birth 

There is no tree like to another tree. 
Each has the features that its brother has 

Yet has some beauty that is all Hs own, 
And so the traveler by woodland paths 

Finds some sweet splendor in one spot alone. 

There is a beauty individual 

In each green nook, in every sylvan scene; 
There is a velvet on each generous hill 

Exactly like no other emerald sheen. 
Thus we remember this dear place or that, 

A perfect picture, in itself complete ; 
'Neath this great oak once one beloved sat, 

A moment's converse made this meadow sweet. 

For we shall wander many sylvan ways 

Yet no strange oak our senses shall deceive, 
Stroll other meadows in the coming days 

And no false meadow make our hearts to grieve. 
One oak shall stand within our hearts enshrined, 

One meadow linger in our memory still. 
Until the oldtime paths again we find. 

The oak, the meadow and the velvet hill. 

Ah, what a master artist Nature is! — 

Ever the same, yet just the same no more. 
The poet's rimes are like old rimes of his, 

The singer sings the songs he sang of yore. 
But Nature paints each scene a different hue. 

Models in dififerent forms her million vales; 
Nature is ever olden, ever new — 

Artist whose inspiration never fails. 



22 IN FOREST LAND 



DISAPPOINTMENT. 

In September, 1609, while Henry Hudson's ship Half Moon was 
at anchor in the Hudson River, the commander sent the ship's car- 
penter ashore to secure a new spar from one of the forest trees. Thus 
pine first was felled in New York. 

Here Henry Hudson furled his sails, 

His rusted anchor chains released, 
And knew the pain of him who fails 

To find his heart's alluring East. 
He sought a passage in the sun 

To Marco Polo's storied land 
And found, when wanderings were done. 

But silent forest, whitened sand. 

Yet was this land a land as fair 

As that the great explorer sought, 
This land a greater people bare 

And here were greater wonders wrought. 
But asked he not to sense the years 

Nor wished the veil of Time to raise — 
For they who seek for hemispheres 

Find small content in quiet bays. 

He asked but shelter from the sea 

Within the ancient harbor bar. 
And, of the forest, but a tree 

To substitute for broken spar. 
Unconsciously, of future state 

He sowed the first and potent seed; 
But, than the future, far more great 

Appeared to him his present need. 

Thus we on fame and gold intent, 
Thus we who mighty things aspire, 



THE FOREST 23 

May find extended continent 

Between us and our heart's desire. 
And, when within its harbor calm 

We drop our rusted anchor chain, 
We, too, will ask no boon but balm 

To heal our wound and still our pain. 

Oh, they who falter by the way 

And never reach the other side, 
Who never find the quiet bay 

Where crippled ship of hope may ride. 
May suffer much — yet suffer ne'er 

Like those who reach the distant land 
And find not jeweled cities fair 

But silent forest, whitened sand. 

And yet, perhaps the fates unkind 

Have borne our bark to fairer shore 
Than that fair land we hoped to find. 

Have borne our bark to treasures more. 
Our pain may render birth to love 

That fills our souls with holier fire 
Than that red glow that blazed above 

The region of our heart's desire. 



24 IN FOREST LAND 



THE BIRTH OF HOPE. 

Last night the path of life was drear 

And dead leaves shivered in the breeze. 
Last night the world was bleak and blear. 
And want and sorrow, pain and fear, 
Lurked in the shadows of the trees. 

Dead leaves, dead leaves of other days, 
Touched by the frost of fate unkind, 

Lay clustered deep in woodland ways 

Or hurried over frozen bays, 
Urged by an unrelenting wind. 

But lo ! the new year and the morn 
Came with the passing of the night. 

Another life and world were born — 

The sable curtains, rent and torn. 
Revealed a vista fair and bright. 

The trees, new-leaved, are filled with bloom — 

The buds of new and happy hours. 
Gone are the midnight and the gloom. 
And golden shafts of light illume 

Hope's fragrant pathway strewn with flowers. 



THE FOREST 25 

SLEEP. 

I slept last night as the wild wood's guest 

In the shade of an ancient tree, 
I sank to rest on the verdured crest 

Of a hill beside the sea; 

And the waves sang low to me: 

Sleep by the waters of the ocean old, 

Lulled by the song of the deep, 
For maids give smiles and men give gold 

But the good God gives you sleep. 

Yes, the good God gives you sleep. 

I slept last night in the woodland wild 

In the shade of an ancient yew; 
On the forest child the forest smiled 

With the love the infant knew; 

And it sang the long night through : 

Sleep 'neath the branches of the forest tree 
While the stars their watches keep ; 

The rover's home and the captive free 
When the good God gives them sleep. 
When the good God gives them sleep. 

Long is the way that my feet must tread, 

Weary and long the way, 
The way is red where the feet have bled 

That have walked in a bygone day; 

But I hear the woodland say: 

Sleep at the end of the tangled path, 
Where your soul no more shall weep ; 

You sow but woe and you reap but wrath — 
But the good God gives you sleep, 
Yes, the good God gives you sleep. 



26 IN FOREST LAND 



WELCOME TO THE NEW YEAR. 

Bells of the forest, ring all your changes ! — 

Give us your merriest, cheeriest chime ; 
Now through the woodland a monarch ranges, 

The new-born prince of the House of Time. 

Northern cedar and southern lime, 
Yield of your perfume, your incense olden : 

Wood nymphs, weave your harmonious rime ! 
Sunrise, light all your candles golden ! 

Bells of the forest, ring your cheer! 
Hail to the monarch, the Glad New Year ! 



THE FOREST 27 



THE UPWARD TRAIL. 

Out in the dark wood all alone, 

My only candle light a star, 
I git t' thinkin' of the things 

Above the curtain blue an' far. 
They say thet heaven is up there, 

Thet there the great white angels sing ; 
I wonder if that misty cloud 

Is not, perhaps, an angel's wing? 
They say the gates are made of pearl. 

They say the streets are paved with gold 
And thet there ain't no night at all, 

No winter wind, no rain er cold. 

Sometimes I think I'd like to go 

A-lookin' through that land so fair; 
I wonder if they ever let 

A timber cruiser in up there? 
I guess a mackinaw won't do 

Alongside of them angel suits ; 
Suppose a man'd dare to walk 

On golden streets in cowhide boots? 
The songs the shanty fellahs sing 

On Sunday nights, when pipes are low, 
Won't do up there at all, an' them's 

The only kind of songs I know. 

But I have heard some preacher tell. 
Who'd seen it in a big black book. 

That once there was a Cruiser who 
From earth to heaven made a look. 

This Cruiser, so the preacher said, 
Was estimatin' for us all — 



28 IN FOREST LAND 

For timber cruisers jest as much 
As some rich fellah in St. Paul. 

"Believe in God, believe in men, be square,* 
This preacher used to say, 

"An' you will find the trail — for One 
Has gone ahead an' blazed the way." 



THE FOREST 29 



AUTUMN. 

The time is coming when the leaves 
Shall put away their garb of green 

And don the strange, fantastic weaves 
That color all the autumn scene. 

The crimson gleam and glow of gold, 
The regal tints of ancient Tyre, 

The form of summer shall enfold 
And set the woodland ways afire. 

And where the winter's snow shall lie. 
And where the wind shall whistle shrill, 

The vale shall burn with autumn's dye. 
And autumn's splendor light the hill. 

The summer laughs at winter's breath 
That comes to lure her soul to rest, 

And summer hurries forth to death 
In all her gayest garments dressed. 

When Death shall come to me, I pray 
Ye garb me in my gayest gown — 

And I will meet him bhthe and gay. 
And I will laugh away his frown. 



30 IN FOREST LAND 



FAMILY TREES. 

You boast about your ancient line, 
But listen, stranger, unto mine: 

You trace your lineage afar, 

Back to the heroes of a war 

Fought that a country might be free ; 

Yea, farther — to a stormy sea 

Where winter's angry billows tossed, 

O'er which your Pilgrim Fathers crossed. 

Nay, more — through yellow, dusty tomes 

You trace your name to English homes 

Before the distant, unknown West 

Lay open to a world's behest; 

Yea, back to days of those Crusades 

When Turk and Christian crossed their blades. 

You point with pride to ancient names, 

To powdered sires and painted dames ; 

You boast of this — your family tree ; 

Now listen, stranger, unto me: 

When armored knights and gallant squires, 
Your own beloved, honored sires. 
Were in their infants' blankets rolled, 
My fathers' youngest sons were old ; 
When they broke forth in infant tears 
My fathers' heads were crowned with years. 
Yea, ere the mighty Saxon host 
Of which you sing had touched the coast. 
My fathers, with time-furrowed brow, 
Looked back as far as you look now. 
Yea, when the Druids trod the wood, 
My venerable fathers stood 



THE FOREST 31 



And gazed through misty centuries 
As far as even Memory sees. 
When Britain's eldest first beheld 
The light, my fathers then were eld. 
You of the splendid ancestry, 
Who boast about your family tree, 

Consider, stranger, this of mine — 
Bethink the lineage of a Pine, 



32 IN FOREST LAND 



THE FOREST MORN. 

I sometimes think that thus was born the world — 
Not like a blinding sun from chaos hurled 
To blaze and burn for ages — that it woke 
As wakes the forest, wakes the verdant oak, 
Breathing soft breezes, wreathed in lacy mist 
Through which there burst the gleam of amethyst. 

The forest morn! Across the night profound 

Steals now the music of harmonious sound — 

The bird's faint twitter, sleepy, sleepy still. 

The bird's first carol, sweet, all sweet and shrill; 

And down through branches, poured in generous streams. 

Come tints of dawn, the colors of our dreams. 



THE FOREST 33 



ONE. 

A thousand trees of different leaf, 

A thousand plants of different bloom, 
The pathway shade, the earth illume — 

Yet bow they all to one great chief. 

The modest lily, saintly one. 

The vivid orchid, gorgeous rose — 

Each tree that breathes, each flower grows, 

Turns daily to a common sun. 

Around me rise perplexing creeds, 

As varied as the forest trees; 

And each declares with bended knees 
This is the dogma for my needs. 

To stray, they tell me, means the rod; 
Yet, as the forest greets the sun, 
I find them prostrate every one — 

All kneeling to the selfsame God. 



34 IN FOREST LAND 



POET AND PLUTOCRAT. 

I ask not pity for myself — 

Because I only starve and sing — 
But rather for the slave of pelf 
Who worships but a single thing. 
For mine's a soul that lives awing, 

And his a soul enchained to earth, 
And I from naught may laughter bring 
While he, poor man, must buy his mirth. 
His purchased joy has little worth. 

His purchased pleasures pale and die; 
But slow their death as quick their birth, 
The joys that come to such as I. 

The fleecy castles in the sky. 

The velvet grasses at my feet — 
The love of these he cannot buy 
Nor live without it life complete. 
The souls within men make them sweet. 

The hearts within men are the gold 
That alchemizes humble street 

And warms with sunlight rivers cold. 
The mountain fair, the forest old — 

Before he came these things were here ; 
And, from them, treasures I unfold 

That all his wealth may not bring near. 

O heart of mine, make me hold dear 
These vague, sweet pleasures freely mine, 

And let no earthly wealth appear 
Of equal value, heart, with thine. 
Wouldst take all women for the nine 
Who sit with thee and play the strings? 



THE FOREST 35 

Wouldst trade for vintage old the wine 
That comes to thee on zephyr's wings? 
Wouldst choose the toilsome sculpturings 

Of human hands o'er Nature's art? 
Or for the song the siren sings 

Forget thine own sweet song, my heart? 

Unknown am I in busy mart 

And in the gilded place unknown, 
Yet field and forest wealth impart 

That makes my humble seat a throne; 
And, seated on life's wayside stone, 

I value most the thing that seems — 
For I have found, in journeys lone. 
Our greatest treasures are our dreams. 
Thus ever on my pathway beams 
A star of hope to cheer me on; 
And ever in my heart there gleams 
The promise of a coming dawn. 



36 IN FOREST LAND 



A SONG FOR THE SATIATED. 

When sick of Arabia's spices, 

When weary of musk-laden room, 
When senses themselves grow insensate 

And sweetness monotonous gloom; 
When weary of orient incense. 

Of odors distilled on the Rhine — 
Get back to the scent of the forest 

And breathe you the breath of the pine. 

When sick of the acids and spirits, 

When weary of tinctures and oils. 
When appetite, whetted by drugging, 

Enfolds you in serpentine coils; 
When Death and his army of bottles 

Stand marshalled before you in line — 
Escape to the sheltering forest 

And breathe you the breath of the pine. 

When tired of the air of the city 

Deep-laden with grime and disease, 
Sense-weary, mind-weary, heart-weary — 

Get back to the musical trees. 
No incense like that of the balsam, 

No earth-spot so near the divine — 
Come rest on the bosom of Nature 

And breathe you the breath of the pine. 



THE FOREST 37 



EDELWEISS. 

I climb the mountain gray with rock, 

I climb the mountain white with snow, 
Where gaunt, courageous pine trees mock 

The verdure of the vale below. 
I pass above the fringe of pine, 

I walk amid eternal ice; 
And, far above the timber line, 

I find the dainty Edelweiss. 

O daughter of the heights of cold. 

You teach me courage with your own 
As steadfast as the mountain old, 

Unchanging as unchanging stone. 
Teach me to live a life as sweet. 

My soul to bloom through snov/ and ice. 
That I life's traveler may greet 

With cheer like yours, dear Edelweiss. 



38 IN FOREST LAND 



THE OAK OF MAC GREGOR. 

When the men of MacGregor first breasted the shield 
They looked for an emblem in loch and in field ; 
But the bloom in the meadow will wither and die 
And the hot breath of summer the fountain will dry. 

Then they looked to the wood 

Where the forest king stood ; 
Beheld they the oak, and they said, "It is good." 

The oak of MacGregor they wore on their breasts — 
'Twas a wall to their foes and a roof to their guests. 
The oak of MacGregor they crossed with the sword, 
With the sword and the oak they established their word ; 

And, proud of the blood 

Of King Alpin the good. 
On the point of the weapon his diadem stood. 

MacGregor of Glenstrae at Loch Lomond bore 
The oak of MacGregor in red ranks of war. 
There the men of Colquhoun and the Grahams so bold 
Fell as thick as its leaves at the touch of the cold. 

For the royal old oak 

No foeman e'er broke 
To shape for the house of MacGregor a yoke. 

The oak of MacGregor has stood through the years, 

Often baptized with blood, often nurtured with tears; 

O'er the men of MacGregor its mantle it flings — 

They were true to themselves and their God and their kings. 

They may wander the sands 

Of the faraway lands, 
But the oak of MacGregor in splendor yet stands. 



THE FOREST 39 

HERE WILL BE THE END OF MY VOYAGE. 

May 16, 1675, Pere Marquette entered the mouth of a small river 
on the western shore of Lake Michigan, known on the old maps as 
"Riviere du P. Marquette," He erected an altar for the purpose 
of saying mass and asked to be left alone for half an hour. When 
his companions returned they found him dead. While landing, 
the good man had said to them, "Here will be the end of my voyage." 

O Father, when, like thee, I reach 

The final land, my journey o'er, 
When grates my boat upon the beach, 

The life eternal's earthly shore ; 

O Father, when the hour shall come 

That I may quit this fragile bark 
And enter that celestial home 

I see but dimly in the dark — 

May I, like thee, my vessel moor 

In some sequestered harbor still 
Where all is fair and all is pure 

And pine trees whisper on the hill. 

Yea, I would have my journey end 

In some undesecrated place 
Where overhanging cedars bend 

To shield the lily's virgin face. 

For I would sleep 'mid Nature's calm 

In some cathedral in the wood 
Where every echo is a psalm 

That singeth, singeth "God is good." 

And when, like thine, my bark is sent 

To other lands without me, friend, 
May I, like thee, lie down content 

And whisper, "Here will be the end." 



40 IN FOREST LAND 



THE DRUIDS OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

Yea, I have heard their solemn chants, 

Their old, unwritten ritual, 
Beheld the robed inhabitants 

Of altared hill and cloistered dell. 
They gather in the oaken grove 

When midnight bells have rung their chime, 
And through their changing circles move — 

The Druids of the olden time. 

Through marshaled oaks their steps they weave; 

Their paths are bright with vervain bloom; 
And, ever as they pass, they leave 

The scent of hyssop in the gloom. 
Their hassocks are the springing sods; 

They speak their faith by rote and rime ; 
They sing the praise of Nature's gods — 

The Druids of the olden time. 

These shapes are ghosts of men that were, 

Their old religion, like them, dead. 
They thought their pagan faith was sure, 

Yet other gods men love instead. 
Our faith, at most, is but a dream 

But, if mistaken, still sublime — 
And that sweet virtue shall redeem 

The Druids of the olden time. 



THE FOREST 41 



THE LOVE OF A BOTANIST. 

I long for the land of the pinus palustris 

Where the liriodendron is bursting to bloom, 

Where taxodium distichum faithful, industr'ous, 
Is waving in sadness o'er Clementine's tomb. 

'Twas under the spreading hicoria pecan 
We pledged our fond love by the light of the stars ; 

"If any be faithful," we whispered, "then we can," 
While leaning at eve o'er the fraxinus bars. 

A flower from the sweet asimina triloba 

She pinned on my coat as I bade her farewell ; 

But her love grew as cold as the far Manitoba 
And my hopes like the frost-bitten autumn leaves fell. 

They planted catalpa, the fair speciosa, 

They planted the bush and the tree and the vine, 

They planted a sprig of robinia viscosa 

And, underneath these, planted poor Clementine. 



42 IN FOREST LAND 



THE MAGIC OF THE MOON. 

Sometimes I doubt ; sometimes, when heartstrings ache, 
I look in vain through all the world for cheer ; 

The sun's last rays the westward sky forsake, 
And, east or west, the road is dark and drear. 

Alone I wander in the starless night ; 

The clouds of hate and wrong enwrap my soul ; 
And I am weary of the endless fight 

And I would seek no more to find the goal. 

For what is life, that man should break his heart 
By living it? And what, yea what, is death? 

What holds the world, that we should dread to part 
From bread begrudged, from pain and labored breath? 

Then o'er the wood there mounts a perfect orb, 
A stately queen, the mistress of the night ; 

And her bright rays the skulking shades absorb 
And bathe the hidden way in floods of light. 

The river chill with heaven's glow is warmed 

And, far ahead, a beacon beckons on; 
Across a land new-featured and transformed 

A path of silver leads to brighter dawn. 

The way of peace is opened unto me 

And, on my brow, I feel a tender kiss. 
'Tis not the stern, gray world it seems to be — 

It is the fairy world it really is. 



THE FOREST 43 



THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE FOREST. 

I love the man who loves the wood, 
Whate'er his creed, whate'er his blood. 
I may not know his native land ; 
His creed I may not understand ; 
But, when we meet within the wood, 
There each is silent — understood. 

We worship then at selfsame shrine ; 
We see the same celestial shine 
On lustrous leaf, on petaled flower ; 
We feel the selfsame grace and power; 
Yea, kneeling on the selfsame sod. 
We worship both the selfsame God. 

I give who loves the wood my hands. 
For here is one who understands; 
Who loves the wood I give my heart, 
For there responsive echoes start ; 
We meet in this sweet brotherhood — 
We meet as brothers of the wood. 



44 IN FOREST LAND 



SPRING. 

You fellahs in the city think you know when spring is here — 
You talk about the "ozone" an' the "balmy atmosphere" ; 
The smoke of busy chimneys takes a diff'rent kind of hue, 
An' sometimes you imagine thet the sky is really blue ; 
The florist sets his posies out upon the sidewalk now ; 
You kin hear a tugboat chuggin' up the river with a scow ; 
You feel a fresh ambition in your race fer worldly goods — 
But there ain't no spring whatever, though, exceptin' in the 
woods. 

In the woods the buds are bustin', in the woods the grass is 

green ; 
There ain't no iron railin's there, your feet an' grass between; 
In the woods a bird is singin' — spillin' joy to beat the cars — 
An' he ain't no sick canary cheepin' mournful through the 

bars. 
In the woods the sun is shinin', siftin' softly through the 

trees ; 
In the woods the sweetest perfume travels on the mornin' 

breeze ; 
In the woods the flowers are peepin' from their little velvet 

hoods — 
Oh, there ain't no spring whatever like the springtime in the 

woods! 

You kin have your city springtime, when the band begins to 

play 
An' the parks is gittin' greener while your hair is gittin' 

gray; 
You kin have your city springtime, with its mud an' soot an* 

noise, 
Fer up here on the river spring is here with all its joys. 




"Siftin' softly through the trees.' 



THE FOREST 45 

Ferthere ain't no bands make music like the robin's throaty 

trill; 
There ain't no park has grasses like the grasses on the hill. 
The party in the city has more gold, perhaps, an' goods— 
But the world belongs, in springtime, to the fellah in the 

woods. 



46 IN FOREST LAND 

THE ACCESSORY. 

She went to church in holy zeal, 

With a dead bird on her hat. 
She paused, while on the steps, to kneel, 

With a dead bird on her hat. 
The parson preached, "Thou shalt not kill,' 
And God she thanked, with conscious thrill 
That she, good soul, had done no ill — 
With a dead bird on her hat. 

She loved to hear the birdlings sing, 

With a dead bird on her hat. 
She loved to watch them free awing, 

With a dead bird on her hat. 
She thought how sad the world would be 
If ne'er their plumage we might see 
Or hear their warblings in the tree — 
With a dead bird on her hat. 

She held her home the dearest, best, 

With a dead bird on her hat. 
She called her little home her "nest," 

With a dead bird on her hat. 
Her brood she circled with her arm 
To keep each happy child from harm. 
To still her own strange, vague alarm — 
With a dead bird on her hat. 

She could not bear death's form to see. 

With a dead bird on her hat. 
She could not look on cruelty. 

With a dead bird on her hat. 
She wept at others' sufferings. 
She gave her life to holy things. 
And wore the "loveliest of wings — " 
A dead bird on her hat. 



THE FOREST 47 

THE LUMBER CAMP CAT. 

O lumber camp cat, I envy your lot— how happy, how happy 

your fate! 
For you, from the midst of this civilized rot, have gone back 

to your natural state. 
No bootjacks for you now go speeding through air, you 

may love in your passionate way; 
With a bosom unruffled by worry or care you may warble 

your beautiful lay. 
No boys now pursue you, O fortunate cat, no dogs chase 

you up street and down ; 
When you bask in the sun now no woman cries "Scat!" as 

women once did in the town. 
No more you dodge autos and bikes in the street, as cats in 

the city must do — 
For you travel through ways that are shady and sweet, 

under skies that are sunny and blue. 

No infantile darling now tugs at your tail, while mother the 

picture enjoys; 
You are out of the city, that merciless jail, away from the 

soot and the noise. 

lumber camp cat, I envy your lot, a living so joyous and 

good ; 

1 wish I might ditch all this civilized rot and join you up 

there in the wood. 
\Ve would wander by day through the grove and the plain, 

we would sleep on a pillow of pine ; 
^e would roll in the sun, we would bathe in the rain, we 

would live out-of-doors, pussy mine. 
Out-of-doors! Out-of-doors! As the nightwind came down 

we would sip from a chalice of dew, 
[f, instead of a man close imprisoned in town, I were only 

a kitten like you. 



48 IN FOREST LAND 

THE LOVER AND THE HUNTER, 

A man to woman fondly swore 

By stars, by moon, by God Himself, 
He held her dearer, loved her more. 

Than soul or life or place or pelf. 
He pledged their troth by all above 

In sentences the tenderest — 
Yet, when he came to see his love. 

He wore a dagger in his breast. 

He told her how he loved — declared 

His faith would evermore endure ; 
He loved the field o'er which she fared 

Because her feet had made it pure. 
There came a time when serpent hissed 

And to his heart a doubting crept ; 
Her arms he twined, her lips he kissed — 

And then he killed her while she slept. 

Another was who Nature loved, 

Who swore as freely by his God; 
He loved the leaves where shadows moved. 

He loved the flowers and the sod. 
He called the great Creator good 

Who gave to man the forest land — 
Yet, when he wandered to the wood. 

Death's instrument was in his hand. 

He Nature loved — he loved the trees 

In which the birds sang roundelays, 
He loved to breathe the morning breeze 

Where gentle deer trod woodland ways. 
He Nature loved — yet came he armed 

With old, man-made tradition still; 
He wandered to the region charmed 

To worship Nature — and to kill. 



THE FOREST 49 



FOREST, GIVE ME OF THY GREEN. 

O forest, give me of thy green; 

O morning, give me of thy dew; 
O lily, give me of thy sheen; 
O heaven, give me of thy blue, 

The turquoise of the summertime ; 
O wild rose, give me of thy hue — 
And I will weave them into rime. 

And some poor soul enslaved by wrong, 

Yea, some poor soul these sweets denied. 
Mayhap shall hear my humble song, 
Afar from brook and mountainside, 
Mayhap shall hear it and shall see 
Beyond the walls of pain and pride 
These things that ye reveal to me. 



50 IN FOREST LAND 

THE FOREST ON THE SHORE. 

O chosen land of liberty, 

I love, of all, the most 
The splendor of thy forest tree 
That waves to him across the sea 

A welcome to thy coast. 

Its spreading branches typify 

The nation's open arms, 
vVhere heavy-laden soul may lie 
And know that no oppressor's cry 

Shall wake it to alarms. 

Its leaves a-tremble sing the song 

A mother croons at eve; 
They sing triumphant over wrong, 
They cheer the lagging feet along 

And soothe the hearts that grieve. 

For this thy emblem, land of mine, 

The forest on the shore — 
Thy singing spruce and giant pine 
And all that grand and regal line 

That lives forevermore. 

And he who comes from overseas 

Shall hear its minstrelsy. 
Shall hear upon the evening breeze 
That rustles through the leafy trees 

The music of the free. 

And he shall feel the holy calm 

These altared shores invoke. 
Behold, 'mid tones of freedom's psalm 
A land as peaceful as the palm, 

Enduring as the oak. 



THE FOREST 51 

THE SPORTSMAN. 

Above all creatures man was blessed 

With understanding by the God 
Who out of chaos and unrest 

Brought forth the earth an Adam trod. 
The greater strength God gave the brute, 

The greater speed to thing afield, 
Yet gave the less the attribute 

That made the strong to weaker yield. 

God gave this weapon for defense, 

God gave to man the greater brain ; 
Yet who shall say by God's intents 

The one shall perish, one remain? 
Did God make men that they might kill? 

Did God make brutes that they might die ? 
Did God surrender thus His will 

And give His sword to such as I ? 

I cannot think the God who gives 

The breath to any living thing, 
To any beast in forest lives, 

To any bird that soars awing — 
Gives living things to men for play 

To feed men's savage instincts still, 
Gives living things to men to slay 

Because they hold it sweet to kill. 

No man has shed a creature's blood 

And been the better for the deed ; 
No God omnipotent and good 

Esteems to kill a human need. 
Claim no commission from your God 

To kill for sport or slay for pelf ; 
And, when with blood you bathe the sod. 

Hold none responsible but self. 



52 IN FOREST LAND 



SHADOW AND SUN. 

The old man's house from the street sets back, down there in 

his sawmill town. 
His settin* -room's big as this whole darn shack, an' the stone 

on the front is brown. 
There's a roof on that mansion of his so proud, the roof on 

mine is the sky; 
He watches shadows — I watch the cloud, the white cloud 

driftin' by. 
He watches shadows creep up the wall, he grasps for shadowy 

things ; 
I watch the sunlight higher crawl an' hear each bird that 

sings. 
He watches shadows thet toward him run with fingers long 

an' chill; 
But the rocks are warm with the morning sun, an' the grass 

is green on the hill. 
Oh, I've the sun an' the sky so clear an' the night wind an' 

the star; 
An' I am done with the things that were, content with the 

things thet are. 



THE FOREST 53 



THE GALLANT OAK. 

When once the New Year came to earth, 
To claim his realm by right of birth, 
A forest knight, the gallant oak. 
Upon the pathway threw his cloak. 
The garment green, now turned to brown. 
Upon the bare earth fluttered down 
And o'er the velvet to his throne 
The New Year walked unto his own. 

Then gave the New Year a decree 
To every bush and forest tree 
That every growing, blooming thing 
Should hail the mighty oak as king. 
Yea, more, he made the king of trees 
A ruler of the running seas. 
In ships to bear from shore to shore 
The earth's discovered treasures o'er. 

Then called he Springtime to his side, 
Old Winter's pink-limbed, blushing bride, 
And bade her weave a regal cloak 
To cover new the gallant oak. 
And so she wove a gown of green, 
The richest earth had ever seen. 
And garbed anew the mighty tree 
With emblem of his majesty. 



64 IN FOREST LAND 



THE GARB OF GLORY. 

They wore the gray in the old, old day, 

And blue was the garb of these ; 
They felt the press in the Wilderness 

When thunders shook the trees. 
They felt the press in the Wilderness 

When the ramparts burst to flame, 
They gave their years and their women's tears. 

With never a thought of fame. 
Now gun is still and sword in sheath 
And we weave for both the laurel wreath. 

They wore the gray in the ended fray. 

And blue was the garb of these ; 
But the sons of gray wear the blue today 

And the wood sings harmonies. 
The sons are they of the men in gray 

But blue are their mother's eyes, 
And the skies of gray are blue alway 

With the blue of southern skies. 
On the brows of the men in blue appears 
The silver gray of the vanished years. 



THE FOREST 65 



THE FAIR ONE. 

One came from the land of Sahara 

With orient colors ablaze; 
She was fair with the beauty of Sarah, 

The Sarah of Abraham's days. 
The sands of the desert as yellow 

The trinket she wore on her breast, 
The fruit of old Egypt as mellow 

The lips that the sunshine caressed. 
Her eyes were twin fountains of splendor, 

Two wells that the starlight revealed, 
Now melting, appealing and tender. 

Now bright with a love unconcealed. 
The sun and the zephyr had brought her 

The hue of the Levantine clime. 
Fair, fair, was the Orient's daughter, 

A dream of an Abraham's time. 

A child of the forest the other, 

A daughter of cedar and pine. 
The bird of the forest her brother. 

The sister of lily and vine. 
Black as ravens her glorious tresses, 

Dark her eyes as a midnight of storm. 
But the glow that the sunset possesses 

Made her temples the heavens as warm. 
Red her lips as the red of the berry 

When the leaves of the summer are gone. 
Soft her voice as the song of a fairy, 

Light her step as the step of a fawn. 
The sunshine, the zephyr, that kissed her 

Had crowned her the Occident's queen — 
Fair, fair, as her Orient sister. 

The child of the forest of green. 



56 IN FOREST LAND 

Yet each wore the heart of a woman 

And each knew the love of a man ; 
Thus each did some pathway illumine, 

Played her part in a God-given plan. 
Who shall say that the lily is fairest, 

More fair than the orchid or rose, 
If each to some bosom is dearest. 

If each in some solitude glows? 
For this is the measure of beauty — 

'Tis beauty that loves and that serves; 
For this is the measure of duty — 

That duty nor alters nor swerves. 
Yea, gold is all gold the world over, 

In forest or desert possessed. 
And a heart that is true, to the lover 

Is ever the fairest and best. 



THE FOREST 57 



IMMORTALITY. 

For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout 
again. — Job 14;7. 

There is no end of life. The tree that falls 
Beneath the ax, or shattered by the storm, 
Gives up but that which was its show of strength; 
Its wealth of blossoms and its breathing leaves, 
The trunk that marked the progress of its years, 
These only die. The life sap still is there. 
Still there the soil, still there the bending sky. 
Still there the sun that warmed its crown of green, 
Still there the springs that fed its hidden roots. 
So, from its shattered form, new life shall come. 
New leave? put forth, new blossoms deck the glen, 
And where it was the tree again shall be. 

There is no end of life. The man who falls 
But dies as dies the trunk of fallen tree. 
To live again in richer garb and hue. 
For, in the tree, life's essence still is there. 
And, in the man, the soul may never die — 
It does but drop the thing that once it was, 
Its earthly form. Its life it still retains 
And, mounting upward, lifts its golden bloom 
Where, in its earthly shape, it might not reach. 
Yea, mounting upward, casts its petaled shower 
Upon the footsteps of the mighty throne 
That gave it life. 

Trees fall, men die, worlds change, 
But life lives on and on. 

For to the soul 
There comes no death, there is no end of life. 



58 IN FOREST LAND 



WHO UNDERSTANDS. 

O there is this, unhappy heart, 

That makes thee like the solemn wood 
Where many pass: How seldom art 

Thou understood. 

Yet Cometh one who seems to feel 
What heart and forest feel in tune, 

Who loves with heart and wood to kneel 
And there commune. 

The heart will give him of its sigh, 

The wood will clasp him with its hands ; 

For, see! A stranger draweth nigh 
Who understands. 



THE CAMP 



THE LUMBERJACK. 

An untamed creature of the forest wilds, 
He lives to that wild place a soul akin — 
A man whose days are often steeped in sin, 

And yet whose heart is tender as a child's. 

His strength is like the strength of mighty pines, 
His outward form a bark of many scars; 
His head he carries proudly in the stars, 

The while his feet are meshed in tangled vines. 

Calamities throw viselike tendrils out 
To seize him in their hindering embrace ; 
The thorns of wrong whip sharply in his face 

And poisoned things encompass him about. 

He braves disease, the storm, the falling tree, 

The mad, quick water that would hold and drown ; 
But all earth's terrors cannot bear him down 

Or make this man of dangers bend the knee. 

He breathes the air the sturdy maple breathes, 
He walks the soil the selfsame maple feeds ; 
To forest sources looks he for his needs — 

Oh, where are trees and men like unto these? 



60 IN FOREST LAND 



WHEN PATTI SANG AT 36. 

We hadn't seen no petticoat in more'n ninety days, 

We hadn't seen no lady in a year; 
There wasn't no gazabo but whose eyes was sore to gaze 

Jest once ag'in upon some pretty dear. 
When he's up there in the timber, then a fellah sorter dreams 

Of women's smiles an' women's lips an' eyes; 
When you're fur enough away from her, then woman sorter 
seems 

To be a kind of angel in disguise. 

We was camped, as you remember, up on Section 28, 

Where Thompson's strip of timber growed so thick, 
An' was tearin' up the forest at a most amazin' rate. 

For the Feb'uary thaws was comin' quick. 
We went to work by moonlight an' we worked all day like 
dogs, 

Fer the boss had said he'd do the proper thing 
By ev'ry man among us if six million feet of logs 

Was gethered on the rollways in the spring. 

There wudn't been no trouble if the team thet brought 
supplies 

Hadn't brought along a notice with the load, 
Containin' an announcement of a sort of a su' prise 

To happen in a camp jest down the road. 
It seems a troupe of actors thet was passing by that way 

(These fellahs thet perform all kinds of tricks) 
Was hesitatin' in our midst jest long enough to play 

An engagement of one night at 36. 

One statement on the handbill hit us hard an' hit us strong, 
One name alone stood out above the rest; 



THE CAMP 61 

It said thet Mrs. Patti, the accomplished queen of song, 

Wud heave a few selections from her chest. 
Six million feet or nothin', do you think we cud resist 

The chance to see a woman such as that? 
We didn't tell the boss, but we determined to assist 

In greetin' Mrs. Patti with eclat. 

We rummaged through our duffle fer the proper clothes to 
wear 

To make the right impression on the queen ; 
Mike Flannigan got reckless, changed his socks an' combed 
his hair — 

Such fixin's up that camp had never seen. 
There wasn't not a swamper ner a teamster in the crew 

But longed with Patti great to make a hit, 
There wasn't not a fellah in the whole darned camp but knew 

He could win the dame if he spruced up a bit. 

We knocked off work at 5 o'clock that night instid of 8, 

In spite of how the boss got up an' swore ; 
We wuldn't take no chances, any man, of bein' late. 

An' we had to tramp a good twelve miles er more. 
We landed at the bunkhouse down on Section 36 

Jest when the blanket curtain wafted up ; 
An' ev'ry man was handsome, even Ole an' the Micks, 

An' glad he didn't stop behind to sup. 

An' then the show was started. A fellah made a speech, 

Another actor played a tambourine ; 
6ut we was all a-stretchin' necks as fur as they wud reach, 

A-waitin' fer the comin' of the queen. 
At last a dude stepped up in front an' said he'd introduce 

A feature thet in cities was the rage ; 
He said, with our permission, he intended to turn loose 

"The female impersonator of the age." 



62 IN FOREST LAND 

He said that Mr. Somethin'ton would now impersonate 

One Adelina Patti, as announced ; 
And us poor devils thet had tramped twelve miles from 28, 

At them remarks of his, we fairly bounced. 
An' then the "male soprano," the "impersonator" cuss. 

Got up an' started singin' — er he tried ; 
But they couldn't ring that kind of Mrs. Patti in on us — 

The "permission" they requested we denied. 

Them people down at 36 they thought the show was good ; 

They wanted us to let the singer be ; 
They tried to tell us fellahs thet we hadn't understood — 

An' that's, I guess, what caused the jamboree. 
We put the show troupe in the snow, the bunkhouse on the 
bum. 

We drank up all the forty-rod in sight ; 
An' some of us got home next day — yes, some of us — an' 
some 

Come trailin' in along on Tuesday night. 

An' right on top of all of this there come a sudden thaw. 

The roads give out, the logs stayed on the skids ; 
Then Thompson he come up himself an' read to us the law 

An' made us all feel like a bunch o' kids. 
We didn't cut six million feet, we got no extra pay. 

We never work fer Thompson any more; 
But if that "impersonator" ever happens up your way — 

Well, he's the cuss thet I'm a-lookin' for. 



THE CAMP 63 



SUNDAY AFTERNOON. 

Woods work isn't any snap — guess I needn't tell you thxit — 
We ain't up here fer our health, or no pleasure jaunt er bat ; 
Up before the sun is up, in the timber with the morn — 
Woods work isn't any snap — that's as sure as you are born. 
But there ain't no job on earth thet's a snap, if we could 

know; 
Other jobs look like a cinch just because we think they're so. 
I ain't no complainin' cuss, camp-inspectin', lazy loon; 
I git grub an' I git sleep — an' there's Sunday afternoon. 

Sunday afternoon in camp — that's the joyful time fer me; 
Quite as good as well-earnt rest nothing else in life kin be. 
Dinner underneath your belt, sun a-shinin' from the west — 
That's the time to stretch yourself an' just set an' rest an' 

rest. 
An', while you're a-settin' there, how the sunshine warms 

you through — 
Drives the winter from your bones, drives away your thoughts 

o' blue. 
Some folks talk about the stars, some folks sing about the 

moon ; 
Give to me the westward sun on a Sunday afternoon. 

On a Sunday afternoon time don't count fer very much; 
You jest set there dreamin' things, dreamin' things to beat 

the Dutch. 
Seems there ain't no world but this — just the snow an' sky 

an' sun — 
Seems the lumber camp's your world, an' there ain't no other 

one. 
You fergit thet there's a town, plumb fergit all care an' 

strife. 



64 IN FOREST LAND 

An* you draw long breaths of air an' you say "Well, this is 

life!" 
Ev'ry rustle of the pines, ev'ry whisper, seems in tune, 
An' your little world is bright on a Sunday afternoon. 

On a Sunday afternoon you kin set outside an' read 

How the fellahs in the world down the river way "succeed," 

How they grapple throat an' throat, how they fight the fight 

f er bread — 
Mighty poor in happiness, but they're "worth a million" dead. 
Those poor devils think they're rich, people call 'em wealthy 

men; 
But they'd give their hoarded wealth just to live life o'er 

again. 
In December days they long for the sunny days of June, 
For they never know the peace of a Sunday afternoon. 

On a Sunday afternoon then the paper thet you hold. 

While you read an' think an' dream, like as not is two weeks 

old. 
You are rusty on your dates, calendars you never see ; 
An' you measure spring an' fall by the sap thet's in the tree. 
Almanacs an' calendars are the handiwork of men. 
But the men who made the things cannot turn 'em back 

again. 
I don't know who named the month, called it March or called 

it June; 
But one thing I know fer sure — God made Sunday afternoon. 



THE CAMP 65 



UP IN THE WOODS. 

They're cuttin' of a tote road through the hemlock on the 
hill, 

I kin hear their axes ringin' in my dreams; 
An' I'm gittin' kind o' weary of the work around the mill 
An' I'm gittin' kind o' nervous an' it's hard a-settin' still, 

Fer I think I hear the pa win' of the teams. 
Boss was into town last night a-layin' in of beans, 

Of pork an' prunes an' other kinds o' goods ; 
An' there's somethin' down inside me that's a-tellin' what 

it means, 
An' darned if I ain't wishing now fer other sights an' scenes, 

A-longin* to git back up in the woods. 

Now, why a man should want to go up in the woods at all 

Is somethin' I can't seem to understand. 
I can't see nothin' pleasant in the ordinary haul, 
An' yet I'm kind o' restless when the leaves begin to fall 

An' spread their fancy carpet on the land. 
There's surely other methods with a heap sight more o' fun 

Fer men like me to earn their livelihoods; 
They roll you out at four o'clock beneath the jobber's sun. 
An' the stars are all a-shinin' when the day's hard work is 
done — 

An' yet I want to git up in the woods. 



66 IN FOREST LAND 



THE OLD ACCORDION. 

We hadn't no great pipe organ, ner any piano grand; 
We heard no fancy music that we cudn't understand. 
There wasn't no Wagner business er Mister Meddlesome; 
Yet we never lacked fer music — as was music, too, by gum! 
We hadn't no grand piano up there at old Camp Ten, 
Yet we never lacked fer music that was good enough fer men. 
We hadn't no Paderewski er long-haired son-of-a-gun, 
But jest a Swede from Oshkosh an' his old accordion. 

The nights when things was chilly, say twenty er so below, 

We wud gether around about him as he set in the firelight 
glow. 

He didn't play nothin' fancy, no high an' mighty air, 

But he made us laugh with "Bill Bailey" an' cry with "The 
Maiden's Prayer." 

And then we wud shut our eyelids an' miles an* miles we'd 
roam 

While that instrument sobbed the music, the song of "Home, 
Sweet Home." 

It made us all feel more solemn than a sermon wud have 
done. 

Though 't was only a Swede from Oshkosh an' his old ac- 
cordion. 

Sometimes we wud move the benches an' clear the shanty 
floor 

And then wud come stag dancin' fer a good long hour er 
more. 

We wore no dancin' slippers, we wore no broadcloth suits — i 

The shirts that we wore was flannel, an' we danced in cow- 
hide boots. 



THE CAMP 67 

There wasn't no orchestra playin', but we had jest twice the 

fun, 
Fer we had that Swede from Oshkosh an' his old accordion. 

The camp up there on the river is dead an' lone an' chill ; 
The shanty floor creaks no longer, the place an' the night 

are still. 
The boys that we knew are scattered, are scattered fur an' 

wide — 
The foreman is out in Seattle, the Swede, they say, has died. 
We sleep on beds of linen, we eat at a real hotel — 
But sometimes I git a-thinkin' an' I have a homesick spell. 
An* darned if I ain't a-longin* to be back there, jest fer fun, 
An' t' hear that Swede from Oshkosh an* his old accordion. 



68 IN FOREST LAND 



THE DESERTED CAMP. 

In the forest torn and shattered, 
Where the ax has come and gone, 
Where the years flow on and on, 
Silent eve and silent dawn, 

Where the fallen chips are scattered, 

Stands a lonely habitation — 
Buried now by winter snows 
When the raging northwind blows. 
Mounted now by crimson rose 

Feeling summer's each pulsation; 

But it hears no whisper human — 
Only creaking of the frost. 
Sob of pine tree tempest tossed; 
For its threshold old is crossed 

Nevermore by man or woman. 

Yet, when midnight bells are ringing 
In the city by the sea. 
Then a vision comes to me 
And I hear rise merrily 

Sturdy tones of manly singing. 

Oldtime forms I see returning 
To the cabin on the hill, 
To the region white and still; 
On the battered windowsUl 

Once again the light is burning. 

There is Louie — he who perished 
When the forest monarch fell, 



THE CAMP 

Connors — he who heard his knell 

In the woodland's blazing hell, 

There is Mary — whom I cherished. 

God, I thank thee for the dreaming 
Though but dreaming it may be, 
I give thanks for memory, 
I give thanks that I may see 

These that were — that now are seeming. 

Time shall claim the falling rafter. 
And the elements' rude will 
Alter river, plain and hill; 
But forever, ever still 

I shall hear their song and laughter. 

For the camp beside the river 

Is rebuilded in my heart 

Where these midnight visions start ; 

From it none shall e'er depart. 
There its people dwell forever. 



70 IN FOREST LAND 



THE UNCONSCIOUS PHILOSOPHER. 

I ain't no philosopher, like some people say I am. 

Philosophy won't fall a tree, an' it never broke a jam. 

I ain't figured out no law fer to run the universe; 

I take things jest as they be, be they better, be they worse. 

Livin' up here in the woods with the sky an' sun an' trees 

Won't make any fellah wise, make him any Socrates. 

Be they better, be they worse, I take things jest as they be, 

An' I try to be content — thet there's my philosophy. 

If a tree shud crooked grow, grunts '11 never straighten it. 
If an ax ain't hung just right, words *11 never make it fit. 
If it snows when it shud rain, if it rains when it shud 

snow, 
Prayers or cussin's never changed any weather thet I know. 
We kin only hope fer snow jest to keep the roads alive. 
We kin only hope fer rain when we're ready fer the drive. 
When the road is gittin' bare an' old mother earth you see. 
Then a shovel beats a prayer — thet there's my philosophy. 

Other folks has worldly goods, I'm as poor as Dago's monk; 
But I git my thirty bones, git my grub an' git a bunk. 
Other folks ride grunt-machines ; when / travel / must walk ; 
But you can't wish money in, no one gives you coin fer talk. 
I don't cuss because I'm broke, I don't holler at the rich. 
Some is rich an' some is poor; what's it matter which is 

which? 
I'm a reg'lar millionaire, I'm as rich as any be. 
If I'm only satisfied — thet there's my philosophy. 

Some folks long fer fame an' such, long to mingle with the 
great, 



THE GAMP 71 

Long to hold some ifancy job while the public pays the freight. 
I don't long to be no king, long to be no senator. 
When the mighty sit to dine, I ain't hangin' round the door. 
I ain't tryin' much to teach, I ain't tryin' much to learn ; 
I jest try to do what's right — then I never give a dern. 
Be they better, be they worse, I take things jest as they be, 
An' I try to be content — thet there's my philosophy. 



72 IN FOREST LAND 



MARY'S MISSION FURNITURE. 

Y' see, 't was this way: Mary wrote 
Thet she had learned to fairly dote 
On mission furnicher. She said 
She'd like to have some chairs, a bed, 
A table an' a sideboard, too, 
An' other kinds of things a few. 
She said the stuff was all the rage — 
Thet Mrs. Smith an' Mrs. Gage 
Had bought a lot of mission stuff. 
A woman thinks it cause enough 
To buy new fixin's such as those 
If so it happens thet she knows 
Some other woman in the town 
Has got that kind of stuff aroun*. 

So Mary lit her evenin' lamp 
An' wrote some lines to me in camp 
A-tellin' me she wanted bad 
Some furnicher like others had. 
She said our stuff was out of date, 
But mission stuff was somethin' late. 
I thought about the walnut bed 
Where my old father knelt an' said 
His pray'rs. I felt I'd like to keep 
The couch where Father fell asleep 
To wake no more — where Mother dear 
Kept lonely watch, year after year, 
Until that pray'r of his come true 
And they on high was mated new. 
There's not a table er a chair 
But some old memory will share. 



THE CAMP 73 



Some tale of boyhood will relate — 
But now it's old an' out of date. 

An' so I wrote the company 

To give a check to her, so she 

Could buy the mission furnicher. 

I'd rather be a-pleasin' her 

Than keepin' any memory green 

Of days thet was er might have been. 

An' then next week I got a note. 
"My dearest, darlin' Dad," she wrote, 
"I guess I've changed the old place some!- 
Why, you won't know it when you come! 
I've fired that awful walnut bed; 
The center table's in the shed. 
Our home's so nice 'twill make you smile 
I've got it furnished mission style." 

The last log on the bankin' groun'. 
We rode the front bobs into town, 
An' I was all excitement then 
To see the little house again. 
With Mary standin' in the door 
As stood her mother years before. 

'Twas in the mornin' we drove in. 
The river ice was black an' thin; 
The sky of gray had turned to blue ; 
The air was soft, so soft we knew 
That spring was waitin' fer the word 
To wake the flow'r an' call the bird. 
But nothin' sweet that picture had 
As Mary waitin' fer her dad. 

First thing of all I said to her, 

"Now, Where's your mission furnicher?" 



74 IN FOREST LAND 

"O Pa," she said, "it's simply grand!" 
An' then she took me by the hand 
An' showed the house fixed mission style. 
An' me? Well, I could only smile, 
Although I felt like I cud cuss 
To see how they had bunkoed us. 

Fer all this mission f urnicher 
Thet some smart cuss had sold to her 
Was jest a lot of hardwood plank 
Jest thrown together with a yank 
An' called a table or a chair. 
The stuff thet she had gethered there 
Was just the same stuff that the men 
Was used to havin' at Camp Ten. 

A bench marked seven ninety-eight 
Thet Mary said was simply great 
Was like the one thet Jack the Red 
Broke over Jimmie Murphy's head. 
The bed thet cost some thirty plunks 
Was just the picture of the bunks 
They give us fellahs in the woods — 
An' so it was with all the goods. 
Give me a drawshave an' a knife 
An' handsaw an' I'll bet my life. 
If I had hardwood plank enough. 
That I cud make this mission stuff. 

But I said nothin'. Not fer me 
To cause a tear to Mary. She 
Kin boss the outfit, an' her dad 
Is glad as long as Mary's glad. 
I don't like mission f urnicher 
But if it fetches joy to her, 
If it kin make her lips to smile, 
I'd fix the whole world mission style. 



THE CAMP 75 



Mcdonald, the cook. 

McDonald don't cook from no recipey book, exceptin' the 
book in his head; 

But McDonald kin shake up a biscuit er cake thet is fit to a 
king to be fed. 

McDonald don't mope over cookin' -school dope an' git up a 
dinner too late — 

McDonald kin throw Injun meal into dough while a girl 
wud be findin' a plate. 

And ev'rything goes by names ev'ryone knows, when Mc- 
Donald a dinner prepares — 

For beans are called beans an' sardines are sardines on Mc- 
Donald's well-known bill of fares. 

The Frenchman's "men-noo" Mac don't parley vous — he kin 

cook in one language, not four ; 
If McDonald you "chef"-ed he wud hand you his left, fer 

Mac is a cook, an' no more. 
Yet I bet thet his pies wud pry open the eyes of many a 

Johnny Crapaud; 
At fried-cakes an' such he beats Frenchman er Dutch, an' 

his bread is as white as the snow. 
As I mentioned before, he's a cook an' no more, but a cook 

from his wishbone to back ; 
And the citified cuss wudn't satisfy us, since we've 

tasted the cookin' of Mac. 

Kin the cook in the town git the beans golden brown till 

they crumble an' melt in your mouth? 
Kin he boil coffee up till it shines in the cup as golden an' 

rich as the South? 



76 IN FOREST LAND 

Oh, the city hotel may be certainly swell, with its lamps an' 

its music an' flow'rs; 
But fer three squares a day I will take no "cafe" — jest this 

dingy, old cook-house of ours. 
As I mentioned before, Mac's a cook an' no more, but a 

cook from his wishbone to back ; 
An' the citified cuss wudn't satisfy us, since we've tasted 

the cookin' of Mac. 



THE CAMP 77 



THE CALLIN' OF THE PINE. 

The sailor on the shore hears the rollin* ocean roar, an' it 

beckons an' it beckons to the deep; 
He kin hear the tackle shake when he lays at night awake, 

he kin feel the deck a-rollin' in his sleep. 
He kin hear the flappin' sail, he kin see above the gale the 

petrel risin' skyward brave an' free; 
An' there ain't no sailor man thet is happy on the Ian' when 

he listens to the callin' of the sea. 

When he listens to the callin' of the sea, 
When he hears the breakers roarin' on the lee — 
Then his heart is far away where the billows leap an' play, 
When he listens to the callin' of the sea. 

As the sailor hears the sea, so I hear a-callin' me a voice thet 

ever beckons to the wood; 
I kin hear the pine tree sigh to the wind a-passin' by, I ketch 

a breath of air thet's sweet an' good. 
Yes, the sailor's far away where the billows leap an' play, 

when he listens to the music of the brine ; 
But my soul is with the trees an' the river an' the breeze, 

when I listen to the callin' of the pine. 

When I listen to the callin' of the pine, 
When I drink the brimmin' cup of forest wine — 
Then the path of life is sweet to my travel-weary feet, 
When I listen to the callin' of the pine. 

But I like the pine tree best when the river is at rest an' the 

winter holds the world in its embrace, 
When the snow gleams fur an' white, when the moon is cold 

an' bright, when the pine tree wears its diamonds an* its 

lace. 



78 IN FOREST LAND 

Though the winter winds are keen, still its boughs are ever 
green, like the love of her who has this heart of mine ; 

An' I know thet she is true as the verdure ever new, when I 
listen to the callin' of the pine. 

When I listen to the callin' of the pine. 
Then I pledge her in my cup of forest wine — 
An* the stars that shine above all are singin' of my love, 
When I listen to the callin' of the pine. 



THE CAMP 79 



THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES. 

There's a legend they tell ('tis they tell it, my boy) concern- 
ing a certain great tree 

That grows down at Milltown beside the St, Croix, where 
it gets its first taste of the sea ; 

And this legend, or story, concerning the tree has a moral, 
they say, . in it thrown. 

But I'll tell it to you as they told it to me — you can figure 
the moral alone. 

On the bank of the stream grew this spruce tree so tall, but 
this spruce tree was crooked and slim ; 

On its side grew a bump, or a wart, or a ball, and a bird's nest 
hung out on a Hmb. 

There were branches on one side as thick as the fur that in- 
habits a pussy cat's tail; 

On the other, such branches at all as there were were feeble 
and fragile and frail. 

To the east just a trifle the tree was inclined, it wasn't ex- 
actly in plumb ; 

It didn't lean out very far, do you mind, and then, yet again, 
it leaned some. 

But this spruce tree was doomed to an untimely end because 
of its lumberly worth — 

The foreman intended some fellers to send to bring the great 
monarch to earth. 

So he called a picked crew from the forest near by to chop, 
saw and skid up the spruce. 

For he swore that the spruce tree gigantic should die — and 
these were the men he turned loose: 

There was Sandy McGee, just from Bonnie Dundee, a canny 
young bit of a lod; 



80 IN FOREST LAND 

There was Michael O' Toole — he was far from a fool — a son 

of a son of the sod; 
There was Alphonse Le Gaul, just from far Montreal, as 

smooth as the bark on the beech ; 
And an Englishman stout who had lately come out quite 

willing to learn — or to teach; 
And lastly was Jake, who was after a stake and who said, 

"Um-ha-ha! Vot's der use?" 
These five were the crew (for a job lit for two) turned loose 

on that hapless old spruce. 

But the spruce tree, they tell me, looked quite unafraid when 

the crew hove in sight at the morn; 
In the zephyr that passed it it playfully swayed, as it had 

since the day it was born. 
" 'Tis a wee bit a-crookit," quoth Sandy McGee, as he pulled 

off his coat with a yank, 
"I'm thinken' 'twere weel, Meester Wobbly Tree, to lay y' 

up here on tha bank." 
"Perhaps so it were," Michael hastened to state, "but look 

at the bump on the bark ; 
You must fall toward the bump side, for there lays the weight 

— it's so aisy, me byes, it's a lark." 
It then was the turn of the Frenchman Le Gaul, who was 

green at the work, so they say; 
He thought that the bird's nest would help it to fall and 

suggested they fell it that way. 
The EngUshman laughed at traditional foe and showed how 

the branches were spread; 
"Where the top is the thickest," he said, "it must go — or 

the thing will come down on your head." 
But Jake took a squint and he said, "It is lean to the east 

just a leetle, I foun' ; 
So, if you vill look, it is plain to be seen the which way to 

chop up him down." 



THE CAMP 81 

In five different ways would five different men have felled 

that unfortunate tree. 
They argued till sundown — alas! even then these fellers still 

could not agree. 

For said Sandy McGee, just from Bonnie Dundee, "It's best 

by the bank here to lie." 
Then said Michael O'Toole, "You're a bare-legged fool and 

you're grane in the bargain, sez I." 
Then Alphonse Le Gaul danced into the ball and swore by 

the nest on the limb ; 
And then Mr. Miles, from His Majesty's isles, showed again 

how the tree looked to him. 
And lastly came Jake, gave his shoulders a shake and said 

in a voice that was shrill: 
"You vas grazy vons all — eef a tree vas to fall, is he goin* 

to fall up a hill?" 

As I say, there's a moral connected with this, though I never 

have quite made it out; 
I will tell you the story, though, just as it is — you may find 

what the moral's about. 
For Sandy and Michael at last came to blows, John Bull and 

the Frenchman joined in 
And Jake's doubled fist met with somebody's nose and Jake 

got a thump on the chin. 
'Twas free for all, go it all, Donnybrook fair, and ev'ry man 

give it and take; 
In the morning some plaid and a bit of red hair the foreman 

picked up with a rake. 
For each one was licked and each licked ev'ry one — for they 

fought at the foot of the tree 
Till all that was left at the rise of the sun was the hair and bit 

plaidie so wee. 
There's a moral, they say, in this wonderful tale, though for 

morals I haven't much use: 



82 IN FOREST LAND 

But I know, in that quaint old Canadian vale, still grows 

that slim, crooked old spruce. 
But, alas, Mr. Miles and brave Michael O' Toole have passed 

from the knowledge of men; 
And Le Gaul and poor Jake, the Jewish man, you'll on earth 

never meet with again ; 
No, never again will the bagpiping biz be played by poor Sandy 

McGee. 
And the moral's a good one, I'm sure that it is — whatever 

the moral may be, 



THE CAMP 83 



THE SONGS THE WOODSMEN SING. 

Above the quick, explosive notes of axes in the tree-heart 

ringing, 
Above the crash of falling pine, there comes the sound of manly 

singing. 
The roof is God's eternal sky. The graceful, swaying forest 

giant 
Is not more mighty than the tone, more proud, more sturdy, 
more defiant: 

"I love a girl in Saginaw; 

She lives with her mother. 
I defy all Michigan 

To find such another." 

For men must whistle while they work, or irksome is the lot 

of labor. 
For men must mingle voice with voice if each would help and 

cheer his neighbor; 
And, when men sing, then men must sing the praises of a 

gentle woman — 
For she is angel, at the least, and man, at most, is only 
human : 

"She's tall and slim; her hair is red; 

Her face is plump and pretty. 
She's my daisy Sunday best-day girl. 
And her front name stands for Kitty." 

Each holds a sweetheart somewhere dear, each has his meed 

of song to give her — 
She in a fatherland may dwell, she may have crossed the 

silent river. 
Each man has known a clasp of hands, each known a woman's 

sweet caresses: 



84 IN FOREST LAND 

Each man, though rough and rude without, some tender 
memory possesses : 

"I took her to a dance one night, 

A mossback gave the bidding ; 
Silver Jack bossed the shebang, 
And Big Dan played the fiddle." 

Rude is the song — for ever bards feel more than they can 

give expression. 
But never song is half so sweet as when a lover makes con- 
fession. 
Rude are the joys that come to mind, as rude and reckless 

as the rhythm. 
But all are sweet and sanctified by this one joy — that she was 
with him: 

"We danced and drank the livelong night 

With fights between the dancing. 
Till Silver Jack cleaned out the ranch 
And sent the mossbacks prancing." 

And when the tree fells some brave heart, and when the 

river claims a braver, 
The woodsmen's chant is softened low; with tears the faulty 

accents waver. 
They lay him in a shallow grave, the forest o'er it shadows 

flinging. 
And woods and hills and brook and stars are ever, ever gently 
singing: 

"I love a girl in Saginaw; 

She lives with her mother, 
I defy all Michigan 
To find such another." 



THE CAMP 85 



THE WAY HOME. 

We ain't very strong on right an' on wrong, us fellahs at 

lumber Camp Ten; 
If a man wants to cuss er to kick up a fuss, it don't bother 

the rest o' the men. 

If a man's On the square an' inclined to be fair, we like him 

the better fer that; 
But we don't pick a quar'l with the man who will snarl, any 

more'n we wud with a cat. 

If he looks fer a row, we manage as how he don't have to 

wander about; 
An' a mighty good lick, er a duck in the crick, will gen' ally 

straighten him out. 

You kin easy surmise we was took by su' prise when Scotty, 

the boss of the barn. 
Got serious kind an' said, to his mind, he cared not a golly 

gosh darn 

If a man went to kirk, er in camp had to work where he 

never heard singing er text — 
He cud be jest as good as any cuss could, in one place as 

well as the next. 

This theology biz, or whatever it is, was a new kind of talk 

around there. 
We didn't think much on religion an' such ; we was rusty on 

preachin' an' prayer. 

There wasn't a one, not a son-of-a-gun, but wanted to Heaven 
to get; 



86 IN FOREST LAND 

But we had the idee that, if Heaven we'd see, we must go by 
the way of Marquette. 

When we're up in Camp Ten it is different then, away from 

the church an' the chime; 
We have our own laws an' fight our own cause an' eat venison 

any old time. 

So when Scotty, the boss of the heifer an' boss, the other 

lads started to rake, 
They gave a ho-ho an' told him to go an' take a big jump in 

the lake. 

Now, isn't it strange, how quickly we change from joy into 

sorrow an' back, 
How a man seems to know he'll be called soon to go acrost 

the great river so black? 

In an hour, by the watch, that bundle of Scotch in a bunk 

we saw tumble an' toss; 
Fer a kick on the head by that blamed heifer red had ended it 

all fer the boss. 

No preacher was there with a comfortin' prayer to make easy 

the comin' of death. 
There was no one to say a text er to pray fer the poor devil 

pantin' fer breath. 

Then he opened his eyes, but no pain or su* prise in the face 

of the man we could see ; 
'Twas the face of a child, thet looked upward an' smiled, an' 

said, "Fellahs, listen to me: 

"If a man goes to kirk, er in camp has to work where he never 
hears singin' er text. 



THE CAMP 87 

Remember he can be a God-lovin' man in one place as well 
as the next. 

"It's all over, I know, but I ain't scared to go, though my 

heart at the partin' is sair; 
I kin see the white gate where my wee babbies wait — an' I 

know thet I'm goin' straight there." 



88 IN FOREST LAND 



A SON OF SICILY. 

I leava dat Italia 

An' coma to da land, 
Da greata, free America, 

To run banana stand. 
An' when I leava Sicily 

Da sunna he was shine, 
Da leaf was on da feega tree 

An' grapa on da vine; 
Da baby chasa butterfly, 

Da woman sing a song; 
An' life it passa sweeta by, 

Like reever run along. 

But, in Chicago city, sun 

He shina not at all; 
An' in Chicago ever' one 

He "dago, dago" call. 
No hilla stand, no feega grow, 

No bird sing in a trees; 
Da weenter coma an' da snow — 

Italian he freeze. 
I dreama den of Sicily, 

Da woman by da door; 
Da leetle baby so I see 

A creepa on da floor. 

One day padroni come aroun ; 

He say, "You coma me. 
To sunny Sout' I send you down 

Where growa beeg, beeg tree. 



I 




'The sunny South." 



THE CAMP 89 



You worka on a railaroad, 

You shovel upa sand, 
You leefta tie, you carry load — 

I pay you mucha grand." 
"I cara nota abouta pay," 

I say, an' laff an' cry, 
"I wanta goa far away, 

I wanta see a sky," 

I dream of Sicily some more 

But oh ! I feel so diff — 
I sleepa night-time out-a-door, 

Again, again I lif. 
The sun he shina in da sky 

Like sun in Sicily; 
I see da purty butterfly, 

Da birda in da tree. 
Da moona an' da stars so shine. 

So lovely an' so bright, 
I see 'em higha toppa pine, ' 

An' cross masel' at night. 

For God He liva in da sky. 

He Hva in da tree, 
An' in da reever runna by — 

Like dat in Sicily. 
For God He liva out-a-door, 

Not in a city beeg; 
For God He maka sea an' shore. 

Da grapa an' da feeg. 
I go not to Chicago back, 

I sleepa on da sod; 
I stay not in a city black. 

But out-a door wit' God. 



90 IN FOREST LAND 



THE STABLE BOY. 

I don*t know the why er the reason 

(Them things aren't always quite clear), 
But never comes glad Christmas season, 

It never gits this time o' year, 
But I'm thinkin', both sleepin' an' wakin*, 

Of a queer little pardner of mine, 
Of the winter thet we was a-makin* 

A hole in the Ogemaw pine. 

He was tiny an' tough an' a terror. 

He cud cuss, he cud smoke, he cud chew; 
But kid never lived thet was squarer, 

An' kid never lived was as true. 
He walked all the way up the river. 

With never a sigh er a sob 
(Though the days wud make polar bears shiver). 

An' struck the head push fer a job. 

He didn't look hardly quite able 

To monkey with axes or tools. 
So the boss give him work in the stable 

At scrapin' the hides o' the mules. 
An' he still might be curryin' Nero 

An' Caesar up there in the wood 
If God hadn't discovered a hero 

An' give him a chance to make good, 

Y' see, we had that year a baby 

In camp with the rest of the crew 
An' we worshiped the youngster — well, maybe 

You've loved some such kid as that, too. 



THE CAMP 91 

'Tain't often you hear a kid squealin* 

In any such country as that, 
And darned if the men wasn't kneelin* 

Like one to the scaler's young brat. 

But of all of the folks thet cud handle 

That kid an' not scare it to fits 
Not one cud hold even a candle 

To the lad o' the bridles an' bits. 
And now, do you know, I suspicion 

Thet the stable boy, freckled an' slim, 
While he petted that baby, was wishin' 

Fer someone to do it to him. 

One day we was workin' on seven, 

A clump thet stood close to the camp, 
An' the babe was in kind of a heaven, 

A-playin' around us, the scamp. 
Fer his mother to see us had brought him 

(A treat she had promised the tad) 
An' the foreman with log rule had taught him 

T' "scale just as good as his dad." 

We never knew jest how it started. 

But it stabbed ev'ry man to the soul — 
Fer somehow the bindin' chain parted 

An' the top logs all started to roll. 
We heard the great log-chain unlinkin', 

We heard the loud roar of the load ; 
Then none of the baby was thinkin', 

Fer ev'ry man jumped fer the road. 

No, not all. One alone stayed an* seized him, 

The baby who laughed at the noise. 
An' the arms thet reached outward an' squeezed him, 

Thet covered his form, was the boy's. 



92 IN FOREST LAND 

We worked then with madmen's endeavor, 
We Hf ted the logs from the skids ; 

But the chore boy was silent forever — 
He had given his life fer the kid's. 

His name? I can't seem now to mind it, 

Though I dream an' I think an* I try; 
But I know that all entered you'll find it 

In the books of the angels on high. 
To bibles the lad was a stranger. 

No faith ever filled him with joy. 
But the Christ that was born in a manger 

I know will take care of the boy. 



THE CAMP . 93 



THE MAN BEHIND THE SCRAP. 

St. Patrick wuz a paceful saint who druv the snakes from 

Oireland. 
He made the goblins in the bogs betake themselves to higher 

land. 
Now, who but Timmy Corrigan, a far from ornamintal mon, 
Would e'er disgrace the mimory of sich a paceful gintlemon? 

Now, who but Timmy — do ye hear? — an' min loike Mickey 
Flaherty 

Would e'er disthurb St. Patrick's Day wid sich unfit hilar- 
ity? 

But let me whisper just a word, an' this here is the word 
it is: 

The Oirish temper's not so quick as yez hev often heard it is. 

A bit of tow may start a blaze will bum up half the bailiwick ; 
But not till somewan wid a flint has hit a bit of nail a lick. 
Two Oirishmen may scrap until a crowbar big has parted 'em, 
But, tin to wan, whin Oirish fight, some other nation started 
'em. 

It was thot way at Ould Camp Tin whin Pat an' Mickey 

Flaherty, 
Tim Corrigan, his brother Bill an' Dan an' Harry Garrity 
Got in an awful jamboree. They tore the bunks an' binches 

loose ; 
The air was full o' flyin' things, wid axes, saws an' wrinches 

loose. 

An' whin, for want of breath an' bricks, the scrappers had to 

pause a bit, 
The foremon layped among thim all an' thried to learn the 

cause of it. 



94 IN FOREST LAND 

It seems thot Ole Payterson, a harmless kind o' lady's mon 
Had said St. Patrick, blissed saint, wuz just a common 
Swadish mon. 

"Now," sez the foreman, "byes, me byes, there is a double 

moral here 
Which yez will learn b' heart I hope, ye laddybucks who 

quarrel here: 
Now, first: Plaze notice, wan an' all, thot whin the Oirish 

mix up things 
Some other nationality it is at first thot kicks up things. 

"An' also notice, if ye plaze, some yap that couldn't lick a 

stamp 
Is jist the bye that riles ye up an' starts yez out to lick a 

camp; 
And, lasht of all, ye will obsarve, he's never in the dirt at all — 
For he who's first to start a row is seldom ever hurt at all." 



THE CAMP 95 



POET AND PEASANT. 

"How wonderful!" the Poet cried, 

"The pine mounts skyward day by day." 

"Darned if I see," the Chore-Boy said, 
"How it could grow the other way." 

"How beauteous!" the Poet cried, 
"It spreads its branches to the air," 

But the prosaic Chore-Boy asked, 

"What's to prevent it, 'way up there?" 

"How sad its song," the Poet said, 

"It moans like some poor soul has sinned." 

"That ain't no song," the Chore-Boy said, 
"That noise you hear up there is wind." 

"How wonderful!" the Poet cried, 

"Long years it's stood in regal pomp." 

The Chore-Boy smiling said, "I guess 
That you have never pulled a stump,*' 

"A cradle fit for infant king," 

The poet cried, "its branches are." 

"But if the kid," the Chore-Boy said, 
"Should fall 'twould get an awful jan" 

"See in its bark deep-furrowed care," 
The Poet cried in soulful terms. 

"That isn't care," the Chore-Boy said, 
"That isn't care — I guess it's worms," 

"How through the winter," said the bard, 
"It keeps its green garb beauteous." 



96 IN FOREST LAND 

"It keeps its green," the Chore-Boy said, 
"Of course — a pine tree always does." 

"For centuries," the Poet cried, 

"It has withstood the storm that racks. 

"But wait till some one comes along," 
The Chore-Boy said, "who has an ax." 



THE CAMP 97 



JEAN COMES TO MASS. 

*Tis Christmas Eve ; but from the winter sky 
No stars shine out. The pine tops sob and sigh. 
About the camp the night wind sadly moans 
And, at its touch, the shanty loudly groans 
Like some old chopper with rheumatic bones 
Watching the sleepless hours go crawling by. 

The curling incense, from two score of bowls 
Jammed with tobacco, slowly upward rolls. 
Fast fly about the merry woodsmen's jokes 
The while they talk of home and old home folks; 
But one among them still in silence smokes 
And dreams a dream of tiny angel souls. 

While 'round the house the chilling night wind grieves, 
He sits and dreams of other Christmas Eves 
And sees strange shadows on the shanty wall. 
He hears the romping noise and merry call 
Of two small babes, now sleeping 'neath a pall 
Of drifting snow and lifeless autumn leaves. 

But joy is cruel, and wit too merciless 

Respects but ill a heart's unhappiness; 
And soon to him the merry sallies pass: 
"Dream you, Canuck, of some Toronto lass?" 
Or, "Think you, brother, you have come to mass? 

Tell us the wicked sins you would confess." 

"See, Jean has come to mass," the joke goes 'round 
"It is not Christmas Eve good Jean has found, 

'Tis not a time to smile, 'tis time to sigh ; 

*Tis not a time to laugh, 'tis time to cry; 



i IN FOREST LAND 

'Tis not a time to live, 'tis time to die; 
For, see, to mass our good friend Jean is bound." 

Hurt by their jests, pained by their careless wit. 

Resolved no more in silence to submit, 

Jean leaves the pleasant warmth and fireside bright 
And steps without, where now the winter night 
Gives to the world a newer garb of white. 

While whirling flakes in hurry earthward flit. 

'Tis Christmas Eve; and still, as in his dream, 
The voices of his slumbering babies seem 
To call him upward from a world so chill. 
The winds that freeze, the colder words that kill, 
To some far world where peace, peace and good-will 
From the transfigured skies forever beam. 

Jean wanders on ; the hours of midnight pass ; 

The great pines bend before the wind like grass. 
But, in the morning light, that winter wind. 
At sunlight's touch, becomes to men more kind, 
And on a snow-clad mound a form they find — 

For Jean to God's Great Church has come to mass. 



THE DRIVE 



THE WILL OF THE MIGHTY. 

As moved the phalanx of the Greek 

And left behind no thing alive, 
By new-formed bayou, swollen creek, 

Moves now the phalanx of the drive. 
The Grecians linked their thousand spears 

And made their long, unbroken line ; 
Thus on the flowing stream appears 

The mighty army of the pine. 

It leaves behind no trail of death. 

No bloodied battlefiag is seen; 
The balsam scent is on its breath. 

Its banner is the forest green. 
It comes not as the men of Greece, 

When weak must fall and strong must flee ; 
Its message is a song of peace, 

Its mission is but industry. 

As moved the phalanx of the past. 

As slow, as irresistible. 
This forest army, great and vast. 

Moves slowly on to waiting mill. 
And if, perchance, its millions halt 

On sandy shoal or rocky shelf, 
Nor stream nor earth is more at fault — 

The error lies within itself. 

When leaders falter by the way 
Or pause to rest on mossy banks 
99 

LOFC. 



100 IN FOREST LAND 

The stubborn obstacles are they 

That spread confusion through the ranks. 

When timid timber hesitates 

To make the plunge o'er foaming dam 

Or, lured by placid water, waits — 
Then comes the chaos of the jam. 

The moving phalanx of the pine 

Is like the people's tardy will. 
As slow as shield-encumbered line, 

As slow and irresistible. 
And, if it pause by rock or shoal, 

On shifting sand or rolling stone, 
Yea, if it fail to reach its goal, 

The fault is all the people's own. 



THE DRIVE 101 

WHEN THE DRIVE COMES DOWN. 

Things is quiet in the town — 

Boys is up the stream ; 
No one ever blows aroun', 

Life is like a dream. 
Must be much as twenty days 

Since I've seen a fight ; 
People walk in peaceful ways, 

Go, to bed at night. 
Laws ain't broke — or even bent — 

In the good old town; 
But it will be different 

When the drive comes down. 

When the drive comes down 
Things' 11 sizzle brown ; 
Business will be boomin' then — 
When the drive comes down. 

Patsy Ward, from off the Clam, 

He will head the crew 
'Long with Grah'm, who broke the jam 

At Island Number Two. 
All the boys from Houghton Lake 

Pat will have in tow, 
With their winter's thirst to slake 

An' their coin to blow. 
West'rn Avenue will boom 

In the good old town; 
Won't be room for grief an' gloom 

When the drive comes down. 

When the drive comes down 
Things' 11 sizzle brown 
An' the dough will circulate — 
When the drive comes down. 



102 IN FOREST LAND 



THE OLD OHIO LEVEE. 

This world of laughter, love and song 

Has promenades in plenty 
On which, at eve, there stroll along 

The man and maid of twenty. 
Great Paris has its boulevards, 

And fair the streets of Brussels, 
And some to Broadway send regards, 

Where silken garment rustles. 
But, when a-weary is my soul 

And when my heart is heavy, 
I light my black cigar and stroll 

The old Ohio levee. 

Below me flows the yellow stream 

Fair Illinois entwining. 
And far across, as in a dream, 

Kentucky's shore is shining. 
A banjo twangs upon the night, 

The world is filled with singing. 
And, swimming in its silver light, 

The gentle moon is swinging. 
The girls and loves of other days 

Attend me in a bevy — 
I see them in the filmy haze 

On old Ohio levee. 

My feet shall wander other streets 
Beyond the mighty ocean. 

But distant river but repeats 
The loved Ohio's motion. 



THE DRIVE 103 



My lips that warble other tunes 

And flatter other daughters 
Shall but recall remembered Junes 

Beside Ohio's waters. 
And, when of change I tire and when 

My vagrant heart is heavy, 
My feet shall long to stroll again 

The old Ohio levee. 



104 IN FOREST LAND 

THE DRIVE. 

You think of death as a thing that stalks 

Through a famine-stricken land ; 
You think of death as a thing that walks 

With a sword held in its hand. 
I see no flag and I hear no drums 

And no pestilence I fear, 
But I know when the drive down the river comes 

It is death that sacks the rear. 

'Tis the hand of death that the stream would dam 

With a wall of the mighty pine, 
'Tis the hand of death that the logs would jam 

Where the waters leap and shine. 
It is there men fight the fight with death, 

And their hearts are unafraid; 
It is there men fight for life and breath, 

It is there are heroes made. 

You sing the praise of a Winkelreid 

Who gathered the foemen's spears. 
But keep the name of this other sweet, 

Like his, in the after years. 
Peavey or sword or pike or gun — 

To the brave they are all the same ; 
So keep a place for the river's son 

In your cherished hall of fame. 

So keep a place for the man who dies 

When the mighty jam gives way. 
So keep a place for the man who tries 

The hand of death to stay. 
It is death, it is death that sacks the rear 

While demons dip and dive — 
So remember long and hold most dear 

The hero of the drive. 



THE DRIVE 105 



THE CONNECTICUT DRIVE. 

From the home of the towering spruces, 

By Connecticut's cataracts hurled, 
We have come over dams and through sluices 

To knock at the door of the world. 
We bring you the wealth of the forest 

That long in her treasure-house stood; 
We bring you a gift on the river adrift — 

We bring you the heart of the wood. 

Like the horse first imprisoned and haltered, 

The river resisted our will — 
Now stubborn, unmoved and unaltered, 

Now hot with a passion to kill. 
It foamed in white fury at Turner's, 

At Miller's awoke with a roar ; 
Mad the race that we rode while it chafed with its load 

As it groaned with the burden it bore. 

But we conquered the turbulent river. 

And we plunged from the torrent's alarms 
To a silence that trembles forever 

O'er a valley of plenteous farms. 
And this is the gift that we bring you, 

Borne swift on Connecticut's flood — 
From the land of the spruce, for the world's ready use, 

We bring you the heart of the wood. 



106 IN FOREST LAND 



THE MEETING OF THE WATERS. 

O ye who stand in cloisters old 

Where ancient priests have trod 
Who, from the mystic past, unrolled 

The story of your God, 
O ye who stand where kings have stood 

Who shaped the world's career, 

ye who stand where martyrs' blood 
Has roused the idle cheer, 

1 stand, like ye, in mighty place 
No less than such as these, 

The very forum of the race 

Where mingle centuries. 
For here the rivers of the land 

To one great river run, 
And southland loam and northland sand 

Are blended into one. 

For here the great Ohio comes 

From mountains old and gray; 
It brings the heartbeat of the drums, 

The sad beat and the gay. 
It brings the music of the mills, 

The song of industry. 
It brings the wealth of granite hills, 

The heartwood of the tree. 

And here the Mississippi flows 

From Minnesota's lakes; 
It bears the northland's melted snows 

To tepid cypress brakes; 



THE DRIVE 107 

The waters of each prairie state 

Are mingled in its tide, 
It comes a groom importunate 

To Claim the waiting bride. 

The giants of the East and North 

Here thread a common shore, 
Upon a common altar forth 

Their sweet Ubations pour. 
Here join the mighty rivers and 

Roll onward to the seas, 
Here North and South clasp hand and hand 

For all the centuries. 



108 IN FOREST LAND 



THE REBELLIOUS RIVER. 

A river flowed through tranquil ways 

And found its passage to the sea, 
Its life unchanging summer days, 

Its course unchallenged, channel free. 
And so it might have flowed for aye, 

So might its life forever been 
Succeeding summers passing by. 

Had not it ventured into sin. 

But, foolish river, it was proud 

And, tempted by its foolish pride, 
It spurned the forest o'er it bowed. 

It spurned the blossoms at its side. 
It longed to burst the banks of green 

That fortified its verdured length. 
It longed to break the peace serene 

And demonstrate its mighty strength. 

One night it rose rebelliously 

And broke the bounds its form confined, 
It ran untethered to the sea 

And left a ruined land behind. 
The forest trees to earth it beat, 

It crushed the flowers in its wrath. 
And where it ran with errant feet 

It left but havoc in its path. 

But when its fit of rage was o'er 

And when its mighty strength was spent, 
There came a cry from shore to shore, 

A cry demanding punishment. 




"The forest o'er it bowed. 



THE DRIVE 109 



The forest wept for slaughtered shade, 
The ghosts of murdered flowers rose. 

And all the elements were made 
To hear the stories of their woes. 

They sat in judgment on the case, 

They made the guilty stream confess. 
And they declared that one so base 

No longer freedom should possess. 
Yet, when the time for sentence came, 

The elements would speak their will. 
Good Mother Nature, gentle dame. 

Would show the culprit mercy still. 

So this the elements' decree: 

That half of each succeeding year 
Imprisoned must the river be 

Nor know the joy of summer cheer, 
That half its life forever more 

Behind the prison bars be spent. 
Bars more secure than sandy shore — 

This was the river's punishment. 

Six months were added to the past. 

Six months the river traced its course, 
Then came the elements at last 

Their chosen judgment to enforce. 
The jailer Winter seized the stream ; 

He bound the river, once so free. 
In chains with diamonds bright agleam 

And locked them with a silver key. 



110 IN FOREST LAND 



THE PLATTE. 

You thread Nebraska's peaceful miles, 

Reflecting sunshine kisses warm, 
And all your ways are bright with smiles 
And all your days are peace and charm. 
You flow by ranch and verdant farm. 
You nurture fair Nebraska's corn. 
And timid kine feel no alarm 

That lap your limpid edge at morn. 

But I have learned your secret deep 

And I have read your hidden scroll. 
And, while your placid waters sleep, 

I know what torrents stir your soul. 

For, river, I have seen you roll 
Through Colorado's rocky vales 
And, e'er you reach the final goal, 

I know what stress your path assails. 

And are not men like unto you? 

Are there not souls that seem as still. 
Whose inmost springs are boiling, too, 
Like your own sources in the hill? 
The river first is leaping rill. 

From mountain's pen tup bosom thrown; 
And oft the soul unmarked by ill 
Has all the pains of living known. 



THE DRIVE 111 



*'THE BARBARY COAST." 

Priot to 1850 the lumber district of Philadelphia was along the 
Delaware, north of the present Callowhill Street. It was sometimes 
called the "Barbary Coast," perhaps a well deserved title because of 
the roughness of the characters who brought their lumber up or down 
the river. 

Then it's ho! for the Barbary Coast, my boys, it's ho! for 
Barbary Coast; 

We will drink tonight at the old Red Light three fingers to 
the host ; 

We will put her aground tonight, my boys, in the good old 
Delaware — 

For the fresh is strong and the day is long and the morn- 
ing wind is fair, 

The wind is fair, is fair. 

Two hundred thousand of new-cut pine and a quick trip is 
our boast; 

All hands to the oar and we touch the shore, the shore of 
Barbary Coast. 

So, you Salamanca brave, lay hold ; lay hold, you big Canuck ; 
There are yellow shoals, there are eddy holes — and only a 

raftsman's luck. 
Only a raftsman's luck, my boys, to land her safe and sound. 
To run the pier and swing her clear and bring her hulk around. 

And bring her hulk around. 
So lay hold, you lads from Hester Street, lay hold, you big 

Canucks ; 
A hand to the oar and an eye to the shore, you Salamanca 

bucks. 

Let the Susquehanna rage and roar, let the Susquehanna 
hiss — 



112 IN FOREST LAND 

We will cross pull to, we will warp her through, we will ride 
where the current is. 

The song of the river is music sweet and warm the springtime 
sun — 

But better still is Callowhill when the river and we are done, 
The river and we are done. 

We will sing a song that is all our own, we will steal a bar- 
maid's kiss — 

So what care we, while the river's free, for the Susquehanna's 
hiss? 

It is still tonight on Barbary Coast, it's still on Barbary 

Coast. 
The Red Light Inn, the house of sin, has vanished with the 

host. 
No raftsman's song breaks the midnight air, the pilot gray 

is gone; 
No raft is tied the quay beside, and the years flow on and on. 

The years flow on and on. 
Now across the silent Delaware there sweeps a misty ghost ; 
The moon shines still on Callowhill — but dead is Barbary 

Coast. 



THE DRIVE 113 



THE GLIDERS. 

It is often declared by the poets long-haired 

Thet life is a stream we are ridin', 
Thet to some port below thet no man seems to know 

Us fellahs are gradjully glidin'. 
Some people I've spied who seem real glad to glide 

An' never will rustle a paddle, 
Who float down the stream in a kind of a dream 

An* are satisfied simply to daddle. 
This loafin' along to some folks may seem fine — 
But /'// take the good, old quickwater fer mine. 

They talk about strife an' the sweet, simple life 

An' the folly of hustle an' worry; 
They seem kind o' proud thet they've never allowed 

Thtmsehes to git into a hurry. 
They find a green pool thet is shady an' cool, 

Er they monkey around in an eddy. 
An' their boat whirls about an' they never git out — 

But they talk about nerves thet is steady. 
But, as just fer me, in this life-livin' biz, 
I want to git somewhere, wherever it is. 

Oh, it's hot in the stream with the sunshine agleam 

An* no shade er no shadow thet's coolin'. 
An' the quickwater foams, an' the white ripple combs. 

An' there ain't no occasion fer fooUn*. 
It*s your life in your hand, an' your nose in the sand 

Unless all your muscle you're givin' ; 
But when you git through an* you bail your canoe — 

Well, you know, anyhow, you've been livin'. 
So none of the life thet is simple fer me; 
I want to be busy, wherever I be. 



THE MILL 



THE THANKSGIVING TURK. 

Thot cock fight at Kelly's wan Saturday night 

Wuz a thing Oi will niver forgit — 
There wuz Irish an' Swades full av whisky an' fight 

An' some Dootchmen too already yit. 
There wuz burrds from Gran* Rapids an* burrds from St. 
Paul 

An' burrds from Duluth an* New York ; 
But the cock o' the walk an' the pride av us all 

Wuz a rooster belonged to O'Rourke. 

This burrd wuz part Shanghai an' part Plymouth Rock, 

Part Langshan an' Indian game; 
Through his veins coursed the blood av more fancy-brid 
stock 

Than Oi kin raymimber the name. 
He'd a comb thot resimbled a rid flannel shirt 

An' a beak like a circular's edge ; 
An' whin he got mad an' begun to kick dirt 

He cud trun it aroun' like a dredge. 

There wasn't a mon from Kilkenney or Cork 

Who money cud borry or beg 
But knew thot the burrd thot belonged to O'Rourke 

Cud clane up the boonch on wan leg. 
The burrds from New York looked like bantams furninst 

Thot burrd wid the rid flannel comb; 
An' we knew thot the first thot he leaned up aginst 

Wud wish he wuz safely to home. 
115 



116 IN FOREST LAND 



At a signal, two burrds in the circle wuz laid — 

An' wan wuz the burrd of O'Rourke, 
The ither a burrd thot belonged to a Swade; 

Down heads, an' they both wint to work, 
Thot burrd av O'Rourke' s gave a jump an' a jab 

But the ither looked straight in his eye 
An' mit him full tilt wid a stoop an' a stab — 

An' we kissed a month's wages goodby. 

Thot burrd wuz part Shanghai an' part Plymouth Rock, 

Part Langshan an' Indian game — 
But the Shanghai part mit wid a terrible shock 

An' the Langshan part likewise the same. 
The Indian part we found niver at all, 

But other parts scattered aroun' 
Showed the spot where he mit wid thot burrd from St. Paul 

An' the places he lit on the groun'. 

Now here is the sayquil: On T'anksgiving day 

At the boardin' house Mr. O'Rourke 
Wuz swately requested by Missus O'Shea 

To carve up the T'anksgivin' turk. 
Wid a stabber in wan hand, in the ither a knoife, 

O'Rourke tackled bravely the job; 
An' he cut an' he slashed an' he jabbed for dear loife 

But made no imprission, begob. 

Twaz thin that O'Rourke, bein' Irish, got mad 

An' he sez to this Missus O'Shea: 
"Oi'm anxious to foind this burrd' s brother, bedad. 

If he still is a-livin' this day. 
If the brother Oi foind of this T'anksgivin' turk" 

(An* the plate at the lady he hurled) 
"Oi'U take thot same turk, or my name's not O'Rourke, 

An', begorry, Oi'U challenge the wurrld!" 



THE MILL 117 



GIVE ME AN AX. 

'Member when I was a kid workin* in the old wood lot 
Where we used to chop an' cut, where our winter's warmth 

we got — 
Pa on one end of a saw, me upon the other end, 
*Till I thought my body'd break like we made the cioss-cut 

bend. 
Then, just to encourage me, make my bosom swell with pride. 
Pa would say, "If you can't pull, don't git on the saw an' 

ride." 
Sometimes, though, the saw would stick, though we nearly 

broke our backs; 
Then pa'd yell, "All hands stand by — look out fer heads — 

give me an ax!" 

That's some twenty years ago; things have changed a heap 

since then — 
Pa sleeps where the wood lot was, I toil here fer city men. 
Some I marvel at their ways, some I marvel, some I'm mad ; 
Diff'rent sort of chaps are they from my dear, old, cranky 

dad— 
Nothin' here to breathe but smoke, nothin' here to hear 

but noise; 
Wonder thet I sometimes long fer my childhood pains an* 

joys? 
An' I'd like to shut my eyes, shut out reason, shut out facts — 
Hear again, "All hands stand by — look out fer heads — give 

me an ax!" 

City folks ain't country folks, city ways ain't country ways — 
More I come to think these things as I near my final days. 



118 IN FOREST LAND 

When I read of boodlers, read of those who rob the poor, 
When I see the villain's hand with its touch defile the pure; 
When I see the rottenness, see the slowness of reform, 
See how high a wall it is decency an' right must storm, 
Then I know what ails it all, know jest what it is it lacks — 
Men like pa of old to yell: "Look out fer heads — ^give me 
an ax!" 



THE MILL 119 



"THE MILL IN THE FOREST." 

A rendition in words of the musical idyl by Eilenberg. 

While twittering songsters yet announce the morn 
And all the wood is wondrous calm and still, 

Upon the zephyr tremulous is borne 
The waking rumble of the forest mill. 

The great wheel moves; the foaming waters pour 

On waiting sands in crystal melody ; 
The saw's high treble and the pulley's roar 

Are mingled in a song of industry. 

Now through the day the busy millwheel turns; 

And through the day the saw untiring sings, 
Nor rests till red and gold the sunset burns 

And blaze and gilt on all the landscape flings. 

But, as the orb of day slips down the west. 
The waters turn to other ways more still ; 

The weary wheel at last subsides to rest 
And peace comes down upon the silent mill. 

A yellow moon arises o'er the trees. 

The little stars, with eyes half -timid, peep ; 

Night brings her black and somber tapestries 
And wraps the forest and the mill in sleep. 



120 IN FOREST LAND 



THE FALL OF THE CHAMPION. 

I don't recall how many 'twas 

That Jimmy Smith could pack, 
But Jimmy all the records held 

To Manistee an' back. 
No shingle weaver in the world 

Could hope to equal Jim — 
From Ogemaw to Saginaw 

They tipped their hats to him. 

For Jimmy Smith, the packer, was 

A person known to fame, 
An' other packers traveled far 

To stand by Jimmy's frame. 
Some challenged him to combat by 

The thousand or the day; 
An' then at night they took to flight 

To regions far away. 

They'd fill his bin with shingle slits 

No wider than a thumb 
An' give the extras big an' fine 

To some ambitious bum, 
But Jimmy Smith would only smile 

Like one who such disdained — 
'Twas all the same, for from the frame 

The bunches simply rained. 

No fancy apron Jimmy wore 

Like them at bargain sales; 
He had his hammer near at hand, 

His mouth was full of nails: 



THE MILL 121 

An' narrow butts or extra butts, 

The fourteen-inch or foui", 
He'd slam 'em in an' nail the tin 

An' holler up for more. 

Through bins stacked high with shingles odd 

Great Jimmy simply romped. 
An' never in that shingle mill 

Was Jimmy ever swamped. 
There wasn't shingle blocks enough 

In all the mills about 
To keep a bin with shingles in 

That Jimmy wanted out. 

But Jimmy met his Waterloo 

(I think her name was Lu) ; 
She come along in early June 

From down in old Kazoo. 
At Riley's boardin' house she got 

A job at slingin' hash. 
He heard her speak, a{i' in a week 

Great Jim was Lulu's mash. 

For they were strangers on the first 

An' lovers on the third; 
An' they were married on the tenth — 

An' then the row occurred — 
The shingle-weavin' champion, 

The monarch of the frame. 
From pinnacle so lofty fell 

At old, accustomed game. 

For Lu had heard of Jimmy's skill ; 

So, for their weddin' trip. 
She told him he could pack the trunk 

An* also pack the grip. 



122 IN FOREST LAND 

The trunk was two-by-three-by-four. 

An' this is what she told 
Poor Jim that day to stow away 

Within the narrow hold : 

A summer dress, a winter dress, 

A dress for spring an' fall. 
Another dress with neck so low 

'Twas scarce a dress at all, 
An armful too of bows an' ties 

That women like to use, 
A dozen skirts an' Jimmy's shirts 

An' seven pairs of shoes; 

A perfume box, a powder puff. 

Of corsets seven pair. 
Some businesses with ribbon through 

That women like to wear. 
Six pairs of socks, some women's hose. 

Three pairs of rubbers strong — 
An' goodness knows what other clothes 

She wished to take along. 

An' there was Jimmy's clothes, of course. 

An' Jimmy's collars too, 
A quart of Jimmy's summer ties 

An' Jim's suspenders new. 
Jim's polish too, an' blackin' brush, 

An extra hat for Jim, 
Were just a few of fixin's new 

That Lulu shot at him. 

An' Jim went bravely to the work 
With old, courageous smile; 

He shed his coat an' shed his vest 
An' tackled Lulu's pile. 



THE MILL 123 

At first he laid a course of gowns 
An' then a course of hose; 

Then bonnets three an' finery- 
He heaped on top of those. 

A course of trousers followed next, 

An' then a course of shirts, 
An' all the shoes an' blackin* stufif 

He wrapped in Lulu's skirts. 
But when he'd reached the utmost top, 

Had filled the trunk an' tray, 
The stuff that Lu still at him threw 

In heaps around him lay. 

An' so he took the dresses out 

To get the collars in. 
An' then decided it was best 

All over to begin. 
The socks an' salts an' other stuff 

Were tumbled on the floor ; 
There wasn't space for half the lace — 

But Lu kept bringin' more. 

He thought he'd put the hats in first 

An' then he'd put 'em last ; 
He thought he'd put the books on top 

To hold the bonnets fast. 
An' then the liquid blackin' broke, 

The powder got away. 
The trousers tore, an' Jimmy swore 

On this, his weddin' day. 

There's little need to tell the rest 

Of all that happened then ; 
There are some griefs too sacred, friends, 

For ears of other men. 



124 IN FOREST LAND 

The train that would have borne away 
The groom an' blushin* bride 

Pulled out that day for Traverse Bay 
While Lulu sat and cried. 

But Jimmy didn't cry, oh, no; 

No, Jimmy didn't cry. 
He kicked the trunk down seven stairs, 

Then loaded up with rye. 
It was a naughty thing for him 

To get upon a drunk; 
But then, did you e'er try it, too — 

To pack a woman's trunk? 



THE MILL 125 



OSHKOSH. 

No more the thunder of the falling pine 

Awakens echoes where the Wolf descends; 
No more the monarchs of that regal line 

Collect rebellious at the river bends. 

The silence that the ultimate portends 
Already on the woodland sets its sign ; 

The woodsman's ax to greet the morning sends 
No more the thunder of the falling pine. 

Now comes the hemlock prince and claims his own, 

In tilt or tourney ready to compete, 
And mounts with sudden pomp the empty throne, 

His title proven and his right complete. 

The cedar, basswood, gathered at his feet. 
The oak and maple close beside him grown, 

His presence whisper and his scepter greet — 
Now comes the hemlock prince and claims his own. 

The busy murmur of the singing mills 

Is silenced by a newer, deeper note ; 
With newer life the chosen city thrills, 

Her destiny no more a thing remote. 

No more on Winnebago's bosom float 
The cargoes garnered from the pine-clad hills ; 

New industry succeeds with joyous throat 
The busy murmur of the singing mills. 



126 IN FOREST LAND 



THE SILENT CITY. 

It rose by magic in the night, 
A city of the verdant wood, 

Its founders men of brain and might. 
Its builders simple men and rude. 
Where evening fell o'er solitude 
A city in the morning stood. 

For there is gold in tow'ring pine 
And there is wealth in maple hill 

More rich than treasures of the mine 
That make man labor, love and kill. 
Yea, fortunes stand by forest rill 
Awaiting men of earnest will. 

So rose this city by the stream 
That sang a liquid melody ; 

So rose this city like a dream 
Of that the poet hopes may be — 
A city white beside the sea, 
A place of mirth and ministrelsy. 

With evergreen it was embowered. 
With sweetest perfume it was scent ; 

Above it piney sentries towered, 
Above it swaying cedars bent — 
The earth and heaven closely blent 
In one unending firmament. 

A city of great actions this, 

A city of the singing saw; 
The morning heard the crosscut hiss, 



THE MILL 127 

The forest bowed before a law 

That filled its mighty heart with awe, 

That crushed it with relentless paw. 

All day the pine tree's cloister rang 

With sturdy axman's steady blows, 
All day the music of the gang 

Above the woodland echoes rose, 

From morning's sun till evening's close 

The forest held the forest's foes. 

But when the pine, that centuries 

Had swayed aloft, no longer swayed. 
And when its harp among the trees 

The passing wind no longer played. 

When burst the sun through forest shade 

And killed the blossom in the glade. 

Men turned away, as Amnon turned 

From Tamar, whom he had despoiled ; 
The wasted hill and vale they spurned 

Where once their busy axmen toiled — 

Yea, turned they as the Jew recoiled 

From that poor sister he had soiled. 

Now silent is the humming mill. 

Now motionless the busy wheel; 
The thresholds of the cottaged hill 

No longer human footsteps feel. 

About the stumps the creepers steal 

And all their jagged wounds conceal. 

The silent city dully sleeps, 
A city of the living dead. 
And watch the gloomy night-owl keeps 



128 IN FOREST LAND 

Above its homes untenanted. 

The forest creature rests its head 

In streets once loud with human tread. 

But in the silent city square 

The hand of Time is working on, 
And in the shattered woodland bare 

The years replacing riches gone. 

Above this modern Babylon 

Arises now a fairer dawn. 

For base intrigue and bloody war 
Survived have regal families ; 

And thus to pomp and glory more 
Shall rise these fallen forest trees. 
For men of lengthy pedigrees 
Had never lineage like these. 

O silent city, o'er thy head 

The pine shall whisper once again, 

O city of the living dead, 

The rose shall blossom in the fen. 
Reblooming dell, reverdured den 
Shall know once more the feet of men. 



THE MILL 129 



THE SAGINAW. 

The river now is calm and still that, in its glory, rang 
With humming of the busy mill, the music of the gang. 
The forest echoes now no more the shining ax's strokes, 
No longer, stretching shore to shore, the jam the river chokes. 
Now silent runs the Saginaw ; it knows the peace it knew 
When first the ruddy Chippewa explored it with canoe. 

The river flows with little change and melts in azure bay, 
But all the upland now is strange, transformed the verdant 

way. 
Where once a million forest trees gave greeting to the morn 
I trace the course of summer breeze through gently waving 

corn. 
The rugged days of youth are done, the forest echoes cease ; 
Now all the days are sky and sun and all the nights are peace. 

Yet, Saginaw, how great a past is sheaved with other years! 
In what a mighty mold were cast your lumber pioneers! 
They built their mills the stream beside, their camps upon 

the hill. 
Ere yet the red man's fire had died, ere yet his cry was still ; 
And down that pine-embroidered flood, by currents onward 

whirled. 
They sent of silver-hearted wood enough to roof the world. 



130 IN FOREST LAND 



THE TURKEY TASTE. 

We didn't get turkey at Higginsonville ; we didn't shut 
down the old rumbling mill — why, we never knew 'twas 
Thanksgiving until Bill Jones saw the word in an old 
almanac. 

That night when the whistle had tooted its toots, and around 
the old wood-stove we dried out our boots and hung 
up our socks and hung on to our snoots, then we all got 
to talking of things that we lack. 

Bill Jones did some cussing (he's handy at that), while arornd 
in a cloud of tobacco we sat, and he said that a man 
was no more than a rat, up here in this measly old lum- 
bering town. 

Then he cussed his fool luck and he cussed his fool face that 
ever was turned toward such a fool place. He said that 
the grub was a crime and disgrace, and did up the cook 
and the company brown, 

*Twas then Tim the Tarrier, from Tipperaree, a cheerful 
old body all Irish and glee, got in his remarks and he 
said, "D'ye see, you're a lot of unthankful, un-Christian 
galoots. 

Thrue, to please you no turkey has suddenly died an' been 
laid out with cranberry sauce on the side. No giblets 
you have now, all gravied an' fried ; you have no perfume 
but the smell of your boots. 

"But you, old Bill Jones, you know down in Chi, in a little 
back flat, with the alley hard-by, there is turkey today 
an' there's sauce an' there's pie, an' a happy old time 
in the household of Jones, 



THE MILL 131 

With only one sorrow to make *em feel blue an' that's that 
their daddy ain't there with 'em too ; but they're prayin' 
an' longin' an' waitin' for you, an', thank God, they're 
not after a-hearin' your groans. 

"An' the rest of yez, too, who have dear ones somewhere — 
if you know they have turkey an' somethin' to wear, 
if things here are rough, what the divil you care, so 
they're happy at home there, the mother an' kid? 

Just close your two eyes an' grab onto a fork an', whether 
they're back in Detroit or New York, 'twill taste just 
Uke turkey, this greasy old pork." And we did as he 
said, and it did, and it did. 



132 IN FOREST LAND 



BILL. 



Bill hasn't no accomplishment; 

He isn't like his brother Jim — 
Of all these fellows thet invent 

There aren't many up t' him. 
For Jim has in his blankets hid 

Machines t* run perpetual; 
Of course none of 'em ever did, 

But Jim he says he thinks they will. 

No, Bill ain't got no special gift 

Like Alkaholum Peterson, 
Fer tears an' lafter Pete kin sift 

From jest an old accordion. 
In fact, I've often heard it said. 

By ev'ryone but Petie's wife, 
Thet Pete a brass band might uv led 

If he had led a diff'rent life. 

But Bill ain't got no talents like 

The other fellahs on the crick; 
He ain't no scrapper such as Mike, 

Who's beat up half the baiUwick. 
Mike's got a fist an' got a heart 

Thet's never known a friend to fail, 
Fer Mike'U always take your part — 

Unless, of course, he's down in jail. 

Poor Bill ain't got no special skill — 
Fer instance, such as Henry Flint, 

Who kept the books at Murphy's mill 
An' wrote a hand as plain as print. 



THE MILL 133 

In all my life I never knew 

A man as handy with the pen. 
He signed some checks f er Murphy, too ; 

We haven't seen him much since then. 

Poor Bill ain't like the rest of us — 

He plugs along from day t' day; 
He's jest an ordinary cuss 

Who lives the ordinary way. 
But, though he hasn't any gifts 

An' hasn't any special skill. 
In all life's changes an' its shifts 

You sorter kin depend on Bill. 

Yes, Bill's an ordinary man, 

But then we treat him jest as free 
As if it had been Nature's plan 

To make poor Bill like you an' me. 
When Jim needs money to invent 

Er Pete er Mike mus' pay a fine, 
We know why Bill's among us sent — 

Per that's the time fer Bill' t' shine. 



I 



DECKLOADS 



THE INLAND TAR. 

There is bigger ships go trailin' 

In the sunset's westward path 
Than this ancient tub a-sailin' 

With her load of norway lath ; 
But a sailin' man's a sailor 

If he sails a sea er pond — 
It's just as near, either there er here, 

To the sailor's Great Beyond. 



There is bigger ships go cruisin* 

Than this bark from Manistee, 
But they ain't no more amusin' 

When we strike a choppy sea. 
From Liverpool to 'Frisco, 

Conneaut to Marinette, 
It's jest the same when you lose the game. 

An' the water's jest as wet. 



There is bigger ships a-crossin' 

Bigger seas on bigger trips, 
But the place to git a tossin' 

Isn't on the biggest ships. 
On a cranky little schooner 

With a lee shore close at hand 
The simple cuss, just the likes of us, 

Gits a chance to show his sand. 
135 



136 IN FOREST LAND 

So don't waste your precious pity- 
On the heroes of the past ; 

There is fellows jest as gritty 
SaiUn' now before the mast. 

An* when you praise a sailor, 
Let the mighty ship go by — 

The man who sails the Erie gales 
Finds it jest as hard to die. 




'In the sunset's westward path. 



DECKLOADS 137 



THE WOMAN COOK. 



It has been proposed to bar women from employment as cooks 
on lumber craft. 



It mayn't be strictly handsome, 

It' mayn't be jest polite — 
But the woman cook an' her menoo book 

Must disappear from sight. 
A woman I know's an angel 

An* purty to have aboard ; 
But weather gits thick an' folks git sick, 

An' a woman thet's sick — oh. Lord! 



A woman kin mix a puddin', 

A woman kin build a pie, 
A woman kin bake a chocolate cake 

That's pleasant to the eye. 
Her face is a sweet religion 

An' her voice a kind of balm — 
But a woman can't cuss like the rest of us 

When we fall in a dead, dead calm. 



A woman may save the china, 

A woman may sweep the floor. 
Keep chimneys clean an' geraniums green 

An' a fresh tow'l on the door. 
A woman kin boil a herrin', 

A woman kin cook a clam — 
But when the spray knocks the jib away 

A woman ain't worth a damn. 



138 IN FOREST LAND 

A woman is gold an' silver, 

A man is iron an* steel ; 
A woman shrinks when the lee rail sinks, 

But a man'U die at the wheel. 
A woman shud rock the cradle 

An* wait by the cottage door — 
But men belong where the wind is strong 

An' women belong ashore. 



DECKLOADS 139 



BACK TO THE LAND. 

He came aboard us at Duluth — 
A namby-pamby kind of youth, 
Who'd have enough, we surely thought, 
Before we touched at Conneaut. 

He said he wished to make a trip 

Upon a reg'lar lumber ship. 

To benefit his failing health; 

We told him, if he sailed for wealth, 

He'd reason to be happy if 
He simply made enough to live; 
And, if his health he journeyed for, 
He better had remained ashore. 

For, when the wind and water race. 
The lakes are not a healthy place. 
Around the greasy cabin glim 
We sat and thus encouraged him. 

But still he said he guessed he'd stick; 
He didn't think he'd be real sick. 
We told him sick he might not get 
But water was extremely wet 

At this partic'lar time of year. 
And likewise we expressed a fear. 
If old Superior got gay, 
'Twould blow his Panama away. 

That night we stood out in the lake. 
We felt the slackened tackle shake 
And in the dark, uncertain west 
We saw a cloud with purple crest. 



140 IN FOREST LAND 

It struck us full at half past one — 
A peal of thunder like a gun — 
And then the boards began to slide 
From windward to the leeward side. 

If anything can raise the deuce, 
It is a deckload, once broke loose. 
Who could forget a night like that? — 
The sky as black as any hat, 

The foaming green and purple wake 
We left behind us in the lake. 
The load that listed side to side — 
And then at three the captain died. 

We saw him stumble, reel and lunge. 
We heard a frantic cry, a plunge — 
We saw his white face in the dark 
Sink quickly, like a steamer spark. 

I guess we all went crazy then — 
Such things will scare the best of men. 
Some loosed the dory; some, afraid 
To go or stay, both cussed and prayed. 

*Twas then we heard another cry 
Above the storm, "All hands stand by!" 
It was the namby-pamby youth 
Had come aboard us at Duluth, 

From off the larboard came the roar 
Of combers on a sandy shore. 
We saw him put her hard a-port. 
We heard the old tub give a snort — 



DECKLOADS 141 



Then toward the rim of shining sand 
He drove her, bows on, for the land. 
She struck, she Ufted, struck again. 
Then "Each man for himself, my men!" 

We heard the stranger yell once more. 
Well — God knows how — we got ashore. 
The stranger said, "I guess you're right- 
With such a craft on such a night. 

When death rides every billow's crest, 
The solid shore is quite the best; 
A safer place it is, for fair — 
And that is why I put her there." 



142 IN FOREST LAND 



THE MEN OF BANGOR. 

The wind blows west and the wind blows hard and the wind 

blows loud and long, 
But the men of Bangor laugh at gales, for the Bangor men are 

strong. 
The sea rolls high and the sea rolls wide and the sea rolls 

blue and black, 
To the men of Bangor sings a song — and the Bangor men 
sing back: 

We are the men of Bangor 
Who sail the salted sea; 
We are the men of Bangor — 

Ship ahoy! and who are ye? 
We sail to the south with the morning light 
Into the ocean and into the night ; 
Our decks are heavy, our hearts are light — 
Ship ahoy ! and who are ye ? 

The east grows pink, the east grows gray, the east grows 

green and blue. 
And the men of Bangor bend the sails, and sings the Ban- 
gor crew. 
The night comes soon and the night comes dark and the 

night comes black and chill; 
But the men of Bangor feel no fear and the Bangor men 
sing still: 

We are the men of Bangor 
Who sail the salted sea; 
We are the men of Bangor — 
Ship ahoy! and who are ye? 
We sail to the south with the new-cut spruce, 
The northman's pine for the southman's use; 
The wind is free and the sheet is loose — 
Ship ahoy! and who are ye? 



DECKLOADS 143 

The days go by and the days roll on and the days are bleak 

and blear; 
The maids of Bangor kneel and pray, for the Bangor men 

are dear. 
The gale breaks loud and the gale breaks strong and a death- 
song sings the gale, 
And the men of Bangor look at Death and they call to the 
ghostly sail: 

We are the men of Bangor 

Who sail the salted sea; 
We are the men of Bangor — 

Ship ahoy! and who are ye? 
We sailed to the south with the morning light 
Into the ocean and into the night, 
But we saw no sail as thine so white — 
Ship ahoy! and who are ye? 

The river flows to Penobscot Bay and Penobscot Bay to the 

sea; 
And the men of Bangor follow on to the ocean's mystery. 
The women weep and the women wail and the nights are 

lone and long 
And the men of Bangor come not back, but the sea wind 
sings the song: 

We are the men of Bangor 
Who sail the salted sea; 
We are the men of Bangor — 

Ship ahoy! and who are ye? 
We sailed to the south with the new-cut pine ; 
We sailed to a port in the foaming brine ; 
Yet whose the conquest — ours or thine? 
Ship ahoy! Death, who are ye? 



144 IN FOREST LAND 



THE DEPARTURE. 

The chief sang softly to his birch canoe, 
"O Swallow-Bird, O skimmer of the bay, 
Bear me upon its bosom far away. 

Away from all these sounds and faces new — 

For I would be alone, alone with you. 

"O Swallow-Bird, when first I shaped your form, 
The days were still, the nights were only stars, 
The water lapped the shining, golden bars 

Or sang defiance to the thunder storm; 

And nature wooed me with her kisses warm. 

"But now new sounds re-echo on the hill, 

Strange beings tread my father's woodland path. 
O Manitou, are these thy men of wrath? 

In what, O Manitou, have we done ill? 

We feel thy rod, and yet thy voice is still." 

The chief knelt softly in his birch canoe ; 
He paddled swiftly o'er the open bay, 
He followed westward the expiring day. 
Calling, still calling on great Manitou, 
Crooning, "O Swallow-Bird, alone with you." 

At morn his people gathered on the shore. 

They found his footprints on the wetted sand ; 

They found where Swallow-Bird had left the land 
But he they loved returned to them no more 
And Swallow-Bird no zephyr homeward bore. 

So, by the shore of Time's outrunning sea. 
We find the footprints of his vanished race. 
Here stood they last — here, from this final place. 

Pushed bravely outward to eternity 

And joined earth's peoples that have ceased to be. 



DECKLOADS 145 



THE REVENGE OF THE GOOD SCOW MARY. 

The Mary was only a lumber scow, devoid of rigging or sail 

or prow, 
An awkward, gawky. South Milwaukee, bummy, crummy old 

lumber scow. 
Two hundred thousand without a groan she could carry of 

lumber, or tons of stone, 
But excursion steamers and tug-line screamers passed her, 

sassed her and left her alone. 

"For we," they said, "are slim and trim, and over the water 

like birds we skim; 
While you are prosy and dull and dozy, so musty and rusty 

you scarcely swim." 
So the Gladys luffed when they chanced to meet and the 

Swallow showed her a pair of feet ; 
One and all they snubbed her, a "fossil" dubbed her — laughed 

at, chaffed at, throughout the fleet. 

But the Mary simply held her peace and watched the sky in 

the nor'-nor'-eas' 
Grow dead and brassy, glow green and glassy and the hoppy, 

choppy sea increase. 
With her hold half full of norway plank, the good scow Mary 

gave a yank 
And something parted — the Mary started, jamming, ramming 

from bank to bank. 

If ever revenge was really sweet, if ever revenge was quite 

complete, 
*Twas when the Mary got started fairly to square things, 

tear things with that fleet. 



146 IN FOREST LAND 

If anything ever has raised the deuce, 'twas the good scow 

Mary that day broke loose. 
The Swallow was swallowed, the Gladys followed — not a sail 

or a rail left fit for use. 

There wasn't a steamer got in the way was left afloat at the 

close of day. 
There wasn't a tug left had even a chug left when the Mary 

contrary had ceased her play. 
And the Mary said as she wiped her brow, "I guess they've 

learned to respect me now 
Though I'm only a gawky, South Milwaukee, bummy, crummy 

old lumber scow." 



DECKLOADS 147 



PORTE DES MORTES. 

"Who would the beauties of the Bay explore," 
The captain said, "must journey through the Door — 
The Door of Death." And, at the name so grim, 
I trembled. Indian legends old and dim 
Rose swiftly, like a cloud bank ghostly white. 
Rose swiftly on the silence of the night. 
I knew the story — knew that on the sands 
Beneath the billows slept, with clutching hands. 
The warrior proud, the chieftain gaunt and gray — 
And would the morrow make me such as they? 

Then came the dawn. Night's shield of iron, released, 

Fell, molten, in the cauldron of the east, 

And, far and sweet, the day's first seabird called 

Across a wide expanse of emerald. 

The rocks, the pillars of the deathsome door 

On either side, the swaying pine tree bore. 

The gentle waves caressed the smiling sands 

Where earth and water clasped their loving hands. 

This was the Door of Death — a place of peace, 

A peace like that when bells their tinkling cease. 

"Who would the beauties of new life explore," 

The captain said, "Must journey through tne Door — 

The Door of Death." Oh, when I, too, consign 

To swiftly running tide this soul of mine. 

May then the door of death appear as fair 

And tints of dawn succeed the shades of care. 

Oh, may I find the undiscovered land 

But verdured rocks and smiling, golden sand — 

My soul, as slips the night of life away, 

Be soothed by glimpses of the quiet bay. 



148 JN FOREST LAND 



THE CHANNEL. 

The commerce from the northland's shore 
Finds here a channel deep and sure, 
And safe in Huron's bosom moor 

The fleets of great Superior. 

They bear the fallen forest trees, 

They bear the heart-blood of the hills — 
They bear the wealth of mines and mills. 

The treasures of the inland seas. 

And it is well we celebrate 

The channel genius here has made. 

This pulsing artery of trade 
That links the state and sister state, 

For in our messengers afloat 

That bear our commerce east and west 
The people are most truly blest — 

A busy peace makes war remote. 



DECKLOADS 149 



A NARRATIVE. 

The British schooner Laconia, which sailed from Bottswoodville, 
N. B., with a cargo of lumber November 17, 1904, arrived at New 
York April 13, 1905. It had encountered seven hurricanes and forty 
gales and had been blown as far as Barbados. 

*Twas on November seventeen, when winds were blowing 
chill. 

The good Laconia set sail from out of Bottswoodville. 

Brave Captain Troop thus wrote his wife before he sailed 
away: 

"I'll dine with you in Brooklyn town when comes Thanks- 
giving day," 

And with the skipper rode John Holm, and Jacobson the 
mate, 

And Alexander Henderson to keep her footing straight. 

Jack Gannon, in the proper time, the lonely dog watch 
took. 

Jim Powell was the lookout man and Oscar was the cook. 

When three days out of Bottswoodville there came a puff 

of rain 
And then the schooner plunged her nose deep in a hurri- 
cane. 
The wind blew east, the wind blew west, the wind blew 

south and north 
And all the demons of the deep their anger bellowed forth. 
They seized the schooner in their hands, they shook her 

like a rat 
Until no man knew where she lay, what shore she pointed at. 
She pointed north, she pointed south, she pointed west and 

east. 
Three times around the compass swung before she was 

released. 



150 IN FOREST LAND 

Then two long weeks and many miles she sailed through 

ocean gales 
That sprung her seams and washed her decks and blew away 

her sails. 
A staysail soon went overboard, a topmast blew away, 
Till at the mercy of the seas the lumber schooner lay. 
Then came another hurricane; five others followed fast; 
Through two-score gales that tore the sea the lumber schooner 



And, when the sixty days were done, the mainsail stood alone ; 
And ev'ry seam the water took and ev'ry rope made moan. 

Thanksgiving Day brave Captain Troop in Brooklyn did 

not dine; 
He fought to keep his craft afloat, his body from the brine. 
And Christmas found him on the sea, still far from great 

New York; 
He dined on bread of wetted flour and strips of salted pork. 
That day a tramp from Trinidad, for distant Havre bound, 
The poor Laconia beheld and slowly came around. 
"Now leave your ship and come with me," the steamer 

captain cried; 
But Captain Troop but shook his head and not a man replied. 
"Then, if you will not leave the ship, pull but a yawlboat 

near 
That I may send across to you a load of Christmas cheer." 
But, when the yawl had struck the wave, it crumbled like 

a shell 
And sadly o'er the boiling sea the captains bade farewell. 

On January seventeen, so strange the sea wind blows. 

The good Laconia put in at sunny Barbados. 

The mainsail kept still on her course that water-sodden 

boat; 
Naught but her load of Brunswick pine had kept the craft 

afloat. 



DECKLOADS 151 

One day in April, like a bird blown far from homeward 
way, 

The lumber schooner anchor cast at last in New York Bay. 

And she who ended there her course and furled her tat- 
tered sails 

Through seven hurricanes had passed and weathered forty 
gales. 

Think not that all our heroes ride behind our frowning 

guns; 
When you would praise the nation's brave, think on these 

humble ones. 
Think not that men face death alone on cruisers gray and 

grim; 
The hero of the lumber scow — O, brothers, think on him. 
He wears no uniform of blue, he wears no silver star. 
Yet rides he where the waters hiss and where the dangers 

are. 
If war shall come and nation call for men to do and die. 
His voice will be among the first, yea, first to answer 

"Aye." 
His life is given up to toil that you may housen be — 
Defender of the time of peace, reservist of the sea. 



THE BOY 



THE BIG TREE. 

Underneath the old Big Tree, 
- Just a girl and dog and I, 
Counting not the years of glee, 

Years of childhood, slipping by. 
Just a girl and boy and Jack, 

As the skimming swallows free ; 
But no magic bringeth back 

Days beneath the old Big Tree. 



Underneath the old Big Tree, 

From its leafy branches hung, 
There a swing swayed temptingly 

Where in childhood days we swung. 
Frayed and shredded now the ropes 

As the things that cannot be. 
Buried now the childish hopes 

Underneath the old Big Tree. 



Faithful Jack has felt the years, 

Stilled the bark so small and brave. 
And we wet with later tears 

Grasses growing on his grave. 
Marching time that onward sweeps 

Brings no man as true as he. 
Half as true as he who sleeps 

Underneath the old Big Tree. 
153 



154 IN FOREST LAND 

With the reason of the man 

And the candor of the brute — 
Just a soul in black and tan, 

Tender, eloquently mute. 
Dog and girl and dreaming boy, 

These made up the comrades three 
Reaping all they might of joy 

Underneath the old Big Tree. 

There are trees in other lands 

Greater, taller, fairer far; 
But one tree in mem'ry stands 

Binding earth and singing star. 
In its waving branches high 

Heaven's golden door I see — 
Let me at the threshold lie 

Underneath the old Big Tree. 



THE BOY 155 



THE LAND OF CHRISTMAS TREES. 

My papa works in a lumber camp 
In the land of Christmas trees, 

And he wrote to me, 

"I wish you could see 
Such Christmas trees as these! 
In the swamp so cold, in the swamp so damp, 
There are cedars green and great. 

There are pines so high 

That they touch the sky. 
There are hemlocks slim and straight. 

"They smile to the moon, they sing to the star. 
They nod to the passing breeze, 

And every bough 

Wears diamonds now, 
In the land of Christmas trees." 
O wonderful land in the north woods far, 
O wonderful, beautiful land! 

In my cot so white 

I dream at night 
Of the forest green and grand. 

My mama says that the snow that lies 
In the land where the great trees grow 

Is like the spread 

On my little bed 
Where at night to sleep I go ; 
That underneath with tight-shut eyes 
The flowers are slumbering — 

There snug and warm 

From the winter storm 
They wait for the call of spring. 



156 IN FOREST LAND 

So, when I kneel for the night's amen, 
I think of the Christmas land, 

I say a prayer 

For my papa there 
In the forest green and grand; 
And another prayer I whisper then 
While I kneel on bended knees — 

That the Lord will keep 

The flowers that sleep 
In the land of Christmas trees. 



THE BOY 157 



GIVE A BOY A DAWG. 

Give to Pa a horse to drive, 

Give to Ma a dress; 
Give to brother Bill a five, 

A doll to Baby Bess. 
Give to sister Mame a beau 

To sit with on a lawg ; 
These are dandy things, I know — 

But give a boy a dawg. 

Give a boy a dawg an' he's 

Got a faithful pard; 
When he hooks from apple trees 

Rover will stand guard. 
When he goes the woods to roam 

Dawg will follow on. 
Quick to find the way back home 

When the sun is gone. 

Give a boy a dawg an' he's 

Safe as by your arm. 
For two pardners such as these 

Seldom come to harm. 
Rain or storm or sudden night, 

Snow or hail or fog — 
If you'd bring him through 'em right, 

Give a boy a dawg. 



158 IN FOREST LAND 



RUNNIN' LAWGS. 

Runnin' lawgs is dandy fun! 
Course, you hadn't ought to run 
Lawgs at all. It's dangerous, 
An' it makes the boom man cuss. 
"Say, you kids," you'll hear 'im say, 
"You'll get drownded all some day." 
Yep, it's risky lawgs to run — 
Guess it's that that makes it fun 
Runnin' lawgs. 

If a boom of lawgs you found, 
Do you think you'd go around? 
No; you'd chase away your dawg; 
Then you'd jump down on a lawg; 
Then you'd have to jump agin 
To another, or git in; 
For the slipp'ry lawg will sink 
With you quicker'n a wink 
Runnin' lawgs. 

Ma says wickedness and sin's 
Like runnin' lawgs. A boy begins 
Doin' wrong ; an' then he keeps 
Going' on by jumps an' leaps 
Till he comes to water black 
Where he can't go on or back. 
Then he sinks beneath his sin 
Just like some folks tumble in 
Runnin* lawgs. 



THE BOY 159 



One time, 'long about in June, 
I run lawgs all afternoon. 
Then I went to Archie's house 
'Cause I'd wet my Sunday blouse. 
Ma got scared an' started out 
Lookin* for me all about ; 
An' they told her pretty soon 
I'd been seen that afternoon 
Runnin' lawgs. 

Then my ma she cried an' cried, 
So they tell me. Well, I dried 
All my clothes an' started back 
An' I met my ma an' Jack 
Lookin' for me. Ma — well, say, 
She just fainted dead away 
When she seen me once agin. 
Funny — when I'd only been 
Runnin' lawgs. 



160 IN FOREST LAND 



TOMMIE'S HOUSE. 

Tommie's house ain't grand or great ; 

Tommie's house is small, like ours; 
But there's vines that climb the gate 

An' the path is lined with flow'rs. 
Near the street it doesn't stand, 

'Cause there isn't any street — 
Just a footpath in the sand. 

Made by little children's feet, 
To Tommie's house. 

You kin climb up Tommie's trees, 

You kin walk on Tommie's grass, 
You kin lay an' watch the bees, 

Buzzin', buzzin' as they pass; 
You kin listen to the mill, 

You kin hear the birds that sing 
You kin run an' play your fill — 

You kin do 'most anything 
At Tommie's house. 

I expect perhaps some day, 

When I git to be a man, 
I'll be livin' far away. 

Far from Tommie an' from Nan. 
I expect some night I'll sit 

Like my pa does, bended low, 
Wishin* for a sight of it, 

Wishin', wishin' I might go 
To Tommie's house. 



THE BOY 161 



RIDIN' ON THE CARRIAGE. 

Did your pa ever take you 

Upstairs inside the mill 
An' let you ride the carriage 

Along 'ith English Bill? 
He says, "Now, don't git frightened — 

• Jist Stan' up stiff like me ; 
Whichever way she's goin'. 

Why, that way bend your knee." 
An' then Bill pulls a lever 

An' sort o' lets 'er shoot ; 
An', say — well, holy beeswax! 

You ought to see her scoot! 
She kind o' gives a rumble 

An' kind o' gives a hiss 
An' then you hear 'er singin*, 

"Z — z-a-n-g — bunk — siss 1" 

An' when she has no mor'n 

Got good an' goin' gone, 
She kind o' stops a-sudden — 

But I keep goin' on. 
Then pa he grabs my collar 

Jist like he had a gaff. 
An' Bill an' all the fellers 

They laff an' laff an' laff. 
An' then she prances back'ard 

The same way that she come 
An' Bill he pulls the lever 

An' then you hear 'er hum. 
Have you rode on a carriage 

An' heard 'er sing like this: 
"B — boom, boom-boom, b — boom-boom, 

*'Z — z-a-n-g — bunk — siss" ? 



162 IN FOREST LAND 

Them fellers on the carriage 

Are funny kind of men — 
They jist ride this way, that way, 

An' so an' back agin. 
For them it ain't no trouble 

To keep their places, for 
I guess perhaps that maybe 

They're fastened to the floor. 
An' when it comes to speakin* 

Them fellers understan' 
If the sawyer nods his fore'ead 

An whispers 'ith his han'. 
There ain't much use o' talkin*, 

The place so noisy is 
When the carriage gits to singin*, 

' 'Z — z-a-n-g — bunk — siss !" 

There's many kinds o' business 

For boys growed up to men — 
A kid kin be a barber 

Or a kid kin shove a pen. 
But when I grow to manhood 

No airships I'll invent; 
I won't be any lawyer, 

I won't be president. 
There's other kinds o' business 

I'd like a darn sight more 
Than bein' sent to Congress 

Or running of a store. 
I'll just ride on the carriage ; 

There's nothin' fine as this — 
No music like the music, 

* 'Z — z-a-n-g — bunk — siss !" 



THE BOY 163 



BUD GREEN'S HERO. 

Bud Green he thinks that he is smart 

Because he's rode upon a train, 
But Bud has never rode a cart, 

Like me, along 'ith Jimmy Mahon. 
But what Bud prides himself on most 

(An' no kid ever prided more) — 
He's seen a man, he likes to boast, 

Who had his laig shot off in war. 

This man told Bud just how it wuz 

He lost his laig that awful day ; 
A cannon ball it come ker-buzz — 

The laig it cud no longer stay. 
He cud 'ave dodged, the man told Bud, 

An* saved his laig an' saved his pants 
But, if he had, the ball it wud 

'Ave passed his laig an' taken Grant's 

I never seen, like Smarty Green, 

A man who lost his laig in war, 
But I'll bet marbles that I've seen 

Of sawed-off folks a darnsight more ; 
There's Jamie Mack, who lost his hand 

A-picking splinters from the gang, 
An' Jones on one leg has to stand 

Because a bandsaw went ker-bang. 

The man who lost his laig in war, 
As bragged about by Smarty Green, 

Had never felt no buzz saw or 
Stuck fingers in a lath machine. 



164 IN FOREST LAND 

Bud's man who saved the general 
Who won the battle, held the fort, 

He lost no arm an' eye as well 
As other things, as did Old Sport. 

I guess there 's things that's worse than war 

Or being hit by cannon balls — 
Say, have a cog that's near the floor 

Take hold upon your overhalls. 
A man to war don't have to go 

For things that hurt an' things that kill. 
If he'll just fool a year or so 

Around a good old-fashioned mill. 



POEMS FOR OCCASIONS 



THE BURNING. 

As a young mother yields herself to death 
And only sips the joy of motherhood, 
So now this house that we esteemed so good 

Lies heaped in ashes by the fire-fiend's breath. 

The one knew only pain and one soft kiss, 
The gentle pressure once of infant arms. 
Yet may one kiss still all of life's alarms 

And one embrace span even death's abyss. 

Each was a shelter from the world's affairs, 

Each was a place of refuge and of rest ; 

Each to her bosom her own infant pressed 
And with a gentle hand removed its cares. 

O angel Mother, still I hear thy voice ; 

absent Mother, still I see thy face. 
Across the years, across the years and space, 

They calm my spirit, make my heart rejoice. 

O Home of mine amid the gilt and gloss, 

1 learned to love thee in a little while; 

I learned the welcome of thy gentle smile — 
And now I learn, alas, how great my loss. 

O Home of mine, from out thy ashes dumb 
Send me some message, some sweet thought impart- 
Teach me to build, build here within my heart, 

A hearth like thine, where weary ones may come. 
165 



166 IN FOREST LAND 



SAN FRANCISCO. 

She stood beside the westward gate 
And flung it wide to all the world, 
As angels, by the gate empearled. 

Earth's weary travelers await. 

And she was fair as angels are — 
Fair with the mighty mystery 
Of golden strand and emerald sea 

And purple mount and shining star. 

Yea, fair she was, and great, and calm. 
And proudly reigned o'er many a mile; 
Her every sunrise was a smile, 

Her every sunset was a psalm. 

Yea, fair she was — and then, unseen. 
The thunder shook her jeweled throne ; 
Her palace tumbled, stone on stone, 

And left unhoused a stricken queen. 

A tremor ran across the waves 
And broke in terror on the shore ; 
And, where a garden bloomed before, 

New mounds arose o'er huddled graves. 

Bright as her future and her fame 
The skies were kindled by her pyres ; 
Insatiate, a thousand fires 

Wrapped all her splendor in their flame. 



POEMS FOR OCCASIONS 167 

The night came down, and weeping men 

Saw, in the west, day flicker out ; 

Yet in no heart arose a doubt 
That God's white dawn would come again. 

So, San Francisco, in thy woe 

Doubt not the day again shall rise ; 

Come, kiss thy dead and wipe thine eyes 
And set thy features to the glow 

That wakens in the yellow east ; 

For, from thy ashes and thy pyres, 

Shall rise again thy thousand spires 
In numbers and in fame increased. 



168 IN FOREST LAND 



THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 

Like men who play at chess, great minds there are 
That play with nations — by a move or chance 
They make an epoch in the world's advance, 

They seal sweet peace or loosen bloody war. 

Yet they who play at chess and play at strife 
Know not the unrevealed, the ultimate. 
How much of human life appears as fate ; 

How much of fate seems human-ordered life. 

The little things men oft esteem the most, 
And scorn the greater, vital things they do ; 
How great is Austerlitz till Waterloo; 

How small are titles on an exile coast. 

The one-time bauble of a foreign throne — 
A throne unconscious of fore-doomed defeat — 
Arises now, its destiny complete, 

A greater empire than Napoleon's own. 



POEMS FOR OCCASIONS 169 



THE LOUISIANA MONUMENT. 

Look you, O stately monument! 
How good a thing is God's intent, 
How man is but His instrument. 

Look you, as peoples come and go. 
How men build better than they know — 
See Livingston, Marbois, Monroe. 

Thus are our acts in God's will blent ; 
Things men ascribe to accident 
Oft bear the stamp of God's intent. 



170 IN FOREST LAND 



THE FILIPINOS. 

As children greet an infant born, 

All doubt, and fear, and faith, and smiles, 
O Brothers of ten thousand miles, 

O Brothers of the later morn, 
We greet the people of your isles. 

Onetime we looked across the tide. 
When first you came within our care. 
And saw one race, one people, there ; 

We saw a people unified — 
Alike in work, alike in prayer. 

But now you come around the earth 
To teach us what and who you are; 
You come from regions vague and far ' 

And gather at the nation's hearth. 
Strange fruits of most unselfish war. 

One race you are not ; for in you 
We find the soldier, artisan, 
The Christian, the Mohammedan, 

The savage, and the aesthete, too — 
No man like to his brother man. 

O strange composite in the West, 
The task not only ours to teach ; 
But you across the way must reach 

And draw the savage to your breast — 
Must breathe the message each to each. 



POEMS FOR OCCASIONS 171 

O varied people o'er the sea, 

Dream not of eastward exodus; 

Teach you your brothers thus and thus 
Until one people you shall be — 

First one yourselves, then one with us. 



172 IN FOREST LAND 



NAPOLEON. 

He gave to Europe sword and gun, 
With patriot blood he stained her sod; 
But to a land he never trod 

His pen gave more than sabre won. 



JEFFERSON. 

Thine not to lead to cannon mouth 

The fair-haired North, the dark-cheeked South- 

Thine but to win by peaceful ways 

These hills of iron, these fields of maize. 



POEMS FOR OCCASIONS 173 



LAST NIGHT THE SILENT PLAZA THROUGH. 

Last night the silent Plaza through 

There walked a ghostly company 

Attired in oldtime panoply. 
Last night across the waters blue 

There came the sound of muffled oar 

That Ferdinand De Soto bore. 



Last night there climbed the marble stair 
With clinking silver musical, 
A gentleman — Le Sieur la Salle. 

Last night there came a whispered prayer, 
A golden moment 'mid the dross, 
And Pere Marquette bore high a cross. 



Last night there marched a maddened crew 
With Coronado, famed and bold. 
Who walked on gold and saw no gold. 

Last night another nearer drew ; 

And, where he sowed the potent seed, 
A city rose to greet Laclede. 



Last night came Livingston and read 
Upon the world's gigantic toy 
The name "Monroe," the name "Marbois.* 

Then "It is found," De Soto said. 

Then said La Salle, " 'T was not in vain.* 
Said Coronado, "Spain, Spain!" 



174 IN FOREST LAND 

Then said Laclede, "O heart, well done;" 
Monroe, "Well written, mighty pen;" 
Marbois, "O France, what might have been!' 

Then Livingston breathed, "Jefferson;" 
And he in solemn, monk design 
Whispered, "O God, that all were Thine!" 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 



ON THE BLUFFS OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN. 

'T was the year of our centenary, the wide world was our 

guest ; 
We told of the things accomplished and how we had won 

the West. 
We sang of the far Montana, the land of gold and grain, 
The land of the hidden metal, the land of the fertile plain. 
We said we would send a message to the red man in his hills — 
The hiss of the steel that pierces, the hum of the lead that kills. 

So Crook rode north from Wyoming with a thousand men 

and true; 
Then Gibbon rode east from Bozeman with his dusty ranks 

of blue; 
And Terry rode west from Dakota with Custer knee and 

knee — 
Custer the pride of the nation, and his Seventh Cavalry. 
Loved of the army Custer, laureled with battle scars, 
Knight of the newer knighthood under the Stripes and Stars. 

At the head of the Rosebud River Crook met with his painted 

foe — 
And Crook rode back to Wyoming, a painful ride and slow. 
Then up the Rosebud River, by red man's trail and pass, 
To the land of the Little Big Horn, to the Valley of Greasy 

Grass, 
Rode Custer — unhappy victim of bloody and cruel mistake — 
And his men from the great white timber, from the place of 

the mighty lake. 

175 



176 IN FOREST LAND 

Weakened and small their number, yet someone bade 

"Divide" ; 
The word was the fatal blunder by which great Custer died. 
Benteen rode down to the southward and Reno rode to the 

west; 
McDougall was left with the pack-train to do the thing was 

best; 
And upward alone rode Custer, and his Seventh Cavalry; 
Upward alone rode Custer — into eternity. 

They came with a fiery message — the answer was redder 

fire; 
They came in avenging anger — and met with avenging ire. 
San Arc and Ogallala, Brule and red Cheyenne, 
Rode in the circle tightened 'round Custer and his men. 
This was the white man's message, this was the red's reply; 
And they who came with the missive remained behind to die. 

This was not war, but murder ; this was the savage way — 
A battle without surrender, that only death could stay. 
Smith rode down in the gully. Smith and the L troop men, 
Keogh down in the shallow — but neither came back again. 
Thinner and thinner in number they knelt in a blazing hell 
Till, fighting and dying and praying, the last of the heroes 
fell. 

We send to the red a message, to the red man in the hills — 
'Tis the touch of the hand that strengthens, 'tis the sound 

of the voice that thrills. 
We sing of the fair Montana, a land of gold and grain. 
The land of the precious metal, the land of the fertile plain. 
And died not these heroes vainly; they sleep in a land they 

blessed — 
For they gave of their heart's own lifeblood in the winning 

of the West. 




"The great white timber," 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 177 



NIGHT. 

The arms of night enfold the tired day, 

The heavens Hght their million little lamps, 
And, where the sun beheld the world's affray. 

The gentle moon reviews its sleeping camps. 
Thank God for night ; thank God that men must sleep ; 

Thank God that men must pause in toil for gain — 
For, did they not, their eyes must ever weep. 

For, did they not, their hearts must ever pain. 
Thank God for sleep ; thank God for night and rest ; 

I take the balm and press it to my eyes. 
Here I shall slumber, head upon my breast, 

And here, refreshed, behold the new day rise. 



178 IN FOREST LAND 



THANKSGIVING. 

When sheaves are stacked in bounteous heaps 

On summer's fertile plain, 
When he who gleaned the treasure sleeps 

And dreams of garnered grain, 
The air grows warm, the night grows still — 

A memory of June — 
And slowly o'er the distant hill 

Ascends the harvest moon. 

It bathes the sheaves in silver floods 

Of light of heavenly birth. 
It lights anew the fields and woods, 

It glorifies the earth. 
Forgotten now the winter's snow, 

The summer's glaring sun. 
And heaven above and world below 

Are mellowed into one. 

So, when the days of toil are o'er 

And harvest days are here, 
Thanksgiving comes with bounteous store — 

The moonrise of the year. 
Its rays reveal the blessings sent 

To cheer our dreary ways, 
And heartaches old and discontent 

Are mellowed into praise. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 179 



THE BIRTHPLACE. 

Not 'round the palaces of kings 

Is woven all the song and story; 
Time's blazing sun as often flings 

On humble roof the gleam of glory, 
A flow'r may grow from rugged earth 

As in the garden of a Nero, 
And simple hut may render birth 

Like royal house to future hero. 

One birth men celebrate above 

The birth of all earth's line of mortals; 
That night there streamed celestial love 

Athwart the sky from open portals. 
But not on purple or on gold 

First looked the tiny, infant stranger — 
His eyes were opened to behold 

The sombre wall, the rough-hewn manger. 

I know not whose this house may be. 

With sighing cedar bending o'er it, 
Nor know how future history 

Shall view the tangled grass before it. 
The chimney built of stick and stone, 

This place of simple life and barter, 
May be the pillar of a throne, 

May be the last thought of a martyr. 

Yet, if the world shall never know 
The babe that here awakes to being. 

If, while he tramps a treadmill slow, 
The world shall pass him by, unseeing, 



180 IN FOREST LAND 

Still is that humble roof more great 
To that fond heart than any other, 

For he will pause, when life is late. 

To dream of hearthstone and of mother. 

For castle gate and palace wall. 

For cabin door and sturdy rafter. 
With memories our hearts enthrall 

In those long years that follow after. 
The busy man, now feeble seer. 

To some dear place his love is giving, 
Thus one shall turn again that here 

Began the mystery of living. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 181 



PYRAMID PARK. 

Here the Creator paused — and Time stood still ; 
The burning rock, the throbbing, molten hill. 
Solidified unfinished, at His will. 

Eastward there stretched the fertile, rolling plain — 
Ready for tramp of hoof and garb of grain, 
Ready for morning sun and evening rain. 

Westward there stretched the mountains to the sea- 
Rich in the verdant splendor of the tree. 
Rich in their hidden, golden mystery. 

Here in this spot, this uncompleted land. 
The great Creator stayed His mighty hand 
That man might look and learn and understand. 

Then heavy Time resumed its slow career ; 
And day on day, succeeding month and year. 
Slow-moving Time still molds and fashions here. 



182 IN FOREST LAND 



DETROIT. 

The one queen city of the borderland, 

Where clasps each nation an extended hand, 
Detroit sits here beside her channel deep, 
And sees the fleets of peacetime onward sweep — 

A slow procession, fairer and more grand 
Than floating fortresses of steel that keep 

The wreck-strewn roadstead and the bloodied sand. 

This is the Anglo-Saxons' meeting place ; 

Here nation stands with nation face to face; 
But never frowning fort rears here its head 
To send its neighbor fort its word of lead. 

This is the land of plenty and of grace ; 
These are the paths of peace unpicketed — 

This is the common hearthstone of the race. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 183 



LEW WALLACE. 

Each man must leave to earth a legacy; 
Embarking on the waves of mystery- 
Must leave some footprint by the unknown sea. 

Some leave behind them shining piles of gold ; 
Some leave behind them lineage of old ; 
Some leave behind but granite gray and cold. 

Some leave behind a blood-encrusted sword; 
Some leave behind love's broken, silken cord ; 
Some leave behind a monarch's wand and word. 

What leavest thou in legacy or lore? 

What leavest thou, to be remembered more? 

What leavest thou here on the silent shore? 

Not sword alone, for long thy sword was cold, 
Ancestral name or heaps of shining gold. 
But this, the story that thy genius told. 

Now still thy lips, impotent now thy hand ; 
But men shall find thy footprint in the sand 
And many things shall see and understand. 

For men shall walk with Him of Nazareth ; 
For men shall breathe faith's everlasting breath 
And solve the mystery of life and death. 

This is the treasure that thou leavest, then ; 

This is the legacy thou leavest men — 

Long sheathed thy sword, but ever speaks thy pen. 



184 IN FOREST LAND 



GOOD NIGHT, MOTHER. 

Good night, Mother — close your eyes, 

Sleep, the sleep deserving; 
Finished now life's fabric lies. 

Done the hours of serving. 
Good night, Mother — though you sleep. 

Love shall not forsake you; 
We, who watch alone, shall weep. 

But we would not wake you. 

Good night. Mother — it is night 

To the hearts that love you. 
But the day eternal's light 

Marks the path above you. 
Good night. Mother — in the dawn, 

Now the sky adorning, 
Angel voices beckon on. 

Singing, "Soul, good morning!" 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 185 



SYMPATHY. 

No man so poor but he may give 

To other men some cheer, 
No man too low or high may Hve 

To help some brother near. 
The forest that we tread is dark 

And hidden is the trail; 
Oh, keep alight the single spark 

That leads to Holy Grail. 

No gift so cheap to give, and yet 

No gift so dear to hold; 
The eyes that weep when eyes are wet 

Are mines of rarest gold. 
No gift so cheap as love is cheap, 

Yet none so rich may be 
As they who on their altars keep 

The lamp of sympathy. 

A forest dark, bewildering. 

This life we wander through ; 
Praise God for those who work and sing, 

For both we have to do — 
Our greater mission not to win 

The thing we most desire, 
But more to keep, through care and sin, 

Our hearts with love afire. 

For there are others on the road, 

The dark and misty trail, 
And we who bear the lighter load 

Must help the ones who fail; 



186 IN FOREST LAND 

And, helping on the weary soul 
Who stumbles by alone, 

Thus we, in striving for his goal, 
Shall come upon our own. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 187 



ENCOURAGEMENT. 

I hold him dearest who aspires 
To kindle in my heart the fires 
Of best desires. 

I hold the man of all most dear 
Who, when I stumble, draweth near 
With word of cheer. 

I hold that man of best intents 
Who giveth me not paltry pence, 
But confidence. 

For there are men who quick caress 
Win give to laurel-crowned success — 
To nothing less. 

But, oh, how dearer far are they 
Who help me on the upward way 
When skies are gray. 

If so it be that I attain 

The mountain peak, and leave the plain 

And paths of pain, 

My prayers shall first be upward sent 
For those dear friends of mine who lent 
Encouragement. 



188 IN FOREST LAND 



THE BLIND. 

This world, to other mortals green and gay, 
To him is dim and misty and unknown. 

He must explore and re-explore the way, 

Must feel anew each hurt and bruise of stone. 

Each path is strange, though often traveled o'er, 
Each hour of all the day an hour of night. 

At eve he comes half-doubting to his door 
Nor sees afar his window's waiting light. 

And yet I sometimes think perhaps he sees 
The farther as his earthly visions fade, 

That he has solved some of those mysteries 
Through which the seeing blunder on afraid. 

For from his lips I hear no loud complaint 
And from his heart I hear no cry of woe ; 

He bows his head as bowed the dying saint. 
Nor questions God, since God has willed it so. 

I would that I might learn his sweet content 
That I might better bear life's petty ills 

And, when my feet to gloomy vales were sent. 
Might hear my heart still singing in the hills. 

O Dan, if you have found the path of peace, 
You tread the way that many seek in vain ; 

For you have found the place where sorrows cease, 
For you have found the balm for every pain. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 189 

O Dan, if you have learned to bend the knee, 
To bow the head, content, and kiss the rod, 

You look beyond where other men may see, 
You look above them on the face of God. 



190 IN FOREST LAND 



IT'S A MIGHTY GOOD WORLD TO ME. 

I've heard folks sigh, I've heard folks cry 

That life's not worth the while, 
That men deceive and women grieve. 

And none has cause to smile. 
The road is long, and things go wrong. 

And folks all disagree; 
In vain our dreams — and yet it seems 

A mighty good world to me. 

Yes, folks complain that life is pain, 

That naught is good or pure, 
The bad succeed, the wealthy bleed 

The pockets of the poor. 
We weep, we sleep, and thus we keep 

The treadmill endlessly, 
A way of tears — yet it appears 

A mighty good world to me. 

Oh, there are those who tell their woes 

To ev'ry willing ear ; 
To such as they all skies are gray 

And ev'ry path is drear. 
I sometimes think perhaps they drink 

The bitter needlessly; 
Despite their groans, despite their moans, 

It's a mighty good world to me. 

If life is fair or life is bare 

Upon ourselves depends; 
He who complains has but his pains — 

The merry man has friends. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 191 

Oh, look above with eyes of love 

And see the skies of blue 
Where sunrays gleam, and it will seem 

A mighty good world to you. 



192 IN FOREST LAND 



THE DISAGREEABLENESS OF 
INFALLIBILITY. 

He owned a mill, he owned a mine, 
He owned a hundred miles of pine. 
He owned a horseless carriage fine. 

He owned as well a coach and four ; 
He owned a house, he owned a lot, 
He owned a yawl, he owned a yacht ; 
Could Lake Superior be bought. 

He'd owned that, too, from shore to shore. 

He owned a mansion great and brown, 
He owned at night a couch of down ; 
He owned a street, he owned a town, 

In politics he owned a state. 
He owned a sumptuous palace car; 
He owned a railroad stretching far. 
He owned a ship from keel to spar. 

He owned them both and owned the freight 

And yet he lived a life alone 
Because one thing he did not own ; 
And all his cash was seed was sown 

Upon a field of arid salt. 
He had no popularity 
Because he had not learned to see 
That what he lacked was this, that he 

Had never owned a fault. 

l'envoi. 
This life would be one grand, sweet song 
If other folks would say they're wrong. 



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